


Show Me My Silver Lining

by BiSquared



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-01-31 05:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 122,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21440674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiSquared/pseuds/BiSquared
Summary: Three years after the hostile takeover of his grandfather's record label by one DJ Smaug, lead singer Thorin Oakenshield is ready to give up on his dreams, even if his band isn't ready to give up on him. If Thorin can convince talent scout Bilbo Baggins to sign them, they might just have a fighting chance. Of course this is the night when Thorin gets stage fright.The music industry AU no one asked for.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 102
Kudos: 140





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who heard the song of the Misty Mountains in An Unexpected Journey and thought, "Damn, imagine if Thorin Oakenshield was the lead singer in a country band."

Thorin wakes up to someone kicking the end of his bed. It’s not really a bed. It’s a sleeping bag on a foam mat, which means that whoever is kicking the end of his bed is just repeatedly kicking the bottoms of his feet. Thorin opens one eye part of the way, discerns that the sun has not yet risen, and takes action.

“Go away,” he growls, making sure to slur his words. “I’m drunk.”

“I’m afraid not,” Balin says. “And I’m afraid you’re just about the only one who isn’t.”

Thorin hears someone retch and sits up in a hurry. Balin sighs. “Put a shirt on. It’s cold.”

“I don’t care.”

“I know.”

They stopped driving last night only when Bofur was too tired to keep his eyes open. In all honesty, Thorin should have stopped them sooner, before they almost hit the moose. But he was very much looking forward to leaving Chicago behind. Chicago hadn’t seemed like a bad idea to start with. Gandalf somehow managed to land them a weekly gig – Thorin doesn’t want to know how he did it – and they had a steady crowd. At least part of this was because Thorin changed the band name, again, hoping it would make them harder to find. And it did. For a few weeks.

Thorin didn’t have to ask why they got dropped from the club’s roster. He’s used to it at this point. But his nephews, the new drummer and the new banjo player, were not. Thorin turned around for two seconds and when he looked back, Kili and Fili had started a fistfight with the club’s booking agent. They left Chicago in a hurry, leaving the new band name – Bound for Moria, Dwalin’s idea – behind. When they stopped at a gas station to refuel and resupply, Nori bought a dozen six-packs of the cheapest beer the proprietor had, and everybody other than Thorin, Bofur, and Balin got solidly, glumly drunk. And they kept getting drunk until Bofur almost hit a moose and Thorin decided that all of them were done for the night.

They’re dealing with the aftermath of last night’s decisions with varying degrees of grace. Dwalin sits still, impassive, but leaning over every few moments to vomit. Dori, Ori, and Gloin are sprawled out on the ground, eyes squeezed shut. If Thorin had to guess their hangover symptoms, he’d say headache. Bombur, who no amount of alcohol seems to stymie, is cooking something over the portable stove. It smells good. Bofur, based on the feet sticking partway out of his tent and the snoring emanating from within, is still asleep. Thorin looks around, spots Bifur checking over the equipment with Nori’s help.

They’re missing three bandmates, and their tour manager. Thorin turns back to Balin. “Where is Gandalf?”

“Gandalf is on the phone,” Balin says. “Oin is with Fili and Kili. Shall I call them back?”

“No,” Thorin says. He’s not sure if he can look at his nephews right now, not after the stunt they pulled last night. The band is already known as the down-and-out, show-up-on-time-with-equipment-that-doesn’t-work, redheaded stepchild of their small corner of the music industry. Now, thanks to Fili and Kili and their misguided impulse to defend Thorin’s honor, they’ll also be known as the band who punches booking agents when they don’t get their way. Word travels fast in the industry. Gandalf is most likely on the phone trying to convince tonight’s hastily booked venue _not_ to drop them.

“They didn’t mean to,” Balin says.

“You don’t break someone’s nose if you didn’t mean to,” Thorin says. “I should send them home.”

“Then we’d have no one to play banjo and no one to play drums,” Balin says, ever practical. “They’re young. You remember what it was like.”

“No,” Thorin says. Balin just sighs.

Thorin isn’t even ten years older than the youngest of his sister’s sons. His sister is a grand total of fifteen years older than he is, thanks to a shotgun wedding on the part of his parents and a relative wariness of children in the aftermath. Dis was quite unhappy about getting the little brother she always wanted when she was midway through high school. But she loves Thorin. Thorin loves his nephews. And Thorin’s band needs a banjo player and a drummer.

Balin is still looking at him expectantly. “They’ll stay,” Thorin says, and his older cousin smiles. “But if they put another toe out of line –”

“You’ll cut it off?” Fili approaches, Kili behind him. Oin, the group’s medic and musical saw player – they only use it on one song, but it’s a good song – trails behind them, proffering an ice pack, but once he sees where the two of them are heading, he diverts over to Dwalin, who’s still vomiting. Fili has a split lip. “Noted.”

Kili has a black eye. Thorin has no hope that it will go down by tonight, which means it’s stage makeup and a ton of bitching about it for Thorin’s youngest nephew. Said nephew does not seem to have cooled off from last night’s temper at all. “I don’t get how you can stand there and let them say things like that!”

“It’s easy.” Thorin crosses his arms over his chest and wishes he’d taken Balin’s suggestion about the shirt. “Easier than getting knocked down by a bouncer four times my size.”

“He surprised me,” Kili says, surly. “Next time –”

“Next time you’re going home on a one-way ticket,” Thorin says, “so there had better not be a next time.”

The sun is rising, but it will be a while before the frost melts off the grass. It’s getting colder. Soon they won’t be able to sleep outside at night, and they’ll have to spring for motel rooms. Right now, they don’t have money for motel rooms. So unless something changes drastically in the next few weeks, the band’s tour is going to end the way it started – ignominiously, and in Thorin’s shitty apartment in Denver.

Thorin hears Gandalf’s voice, and looks up from his nephew’s battered face to see their tour manager approaching. Gandalf is more than a tour manager – he’s a roadie, an agent, a coach, a public relations officer, and a very good friend. Thorin would pay him more if he had it, but as it is, he suspects Gandalf is in it less for the money and more for the thrill of being on tour and wrangling every bartender and club owner between Los Angeles and New York City.

He can’t read Gandalf’s expression. “Did we lose the booking?”

“No, no,” Gandalf says absently. “It’s not real country music up here unless someone’s in a fistfight over it – they’re expecting more of an audience than usual.”

Good news. Thorin never gets good news, and Gandalf hasn’t wandered off yet, which means there’s something else. “What is it?”

“I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure,” Gandalf says. Sure about what? Thorin and Balin have time to exchange a puzzled glance – Dwalin is still throwing up somewhere in the background – before he explains further. “There is going to be a scout at the show tonight.”

Balin’s eyes light up. Kili and Fili are beaming, and Gandalf looks pleased with himself. Thorin knows better than to let their enthusiasm suck him in. “Which label?”

“Rivendell Records.”

“Never heard of it,” Thorin says. That’s not a good sign. “Which artists do they have?”

“They are fairly new,” Gandalf says. That’s not a good sign, either. In Thorin’s experience, new record labels tend to last about three years before folding under the pressure. “They’re looking for artists to build up their portfolio. I've known their best talent scout since he was a boy, and he has agreed to come out and watch the show.”

“So it’s nepotism,” Kili says.

Fili elbows him. “That’s too big a word for you, little brother. Try again.”

“I’m twenty-one!”

Gandalf wades in to separate them as Kili launches himself at his brother. Thorin turns to Balin under the cover of the latest shoving match. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s another chance,” Balin says. “We might not get many more.”

Balin is in charge of the band’s finances. He knows the sort of trouble they’re in. They own the bus and the equipment outright, but it takes a lot of gas to fill the bus’s tank, and they’re driving hundreds of miles between gigs. There’s also the aforementioned weather problem on the horizon. All in all, Thorin would rather make the decision to quit than have to stop the tour when they run out of money. “We’ve had too many chances,” Thorin says. “It’s an unknown label and some friend of Gandalf’s who’s probably still in diapers. We’d just be embarrassing ourselves.”

“Thorin,” Balin says, “you love music. You love the band. I don’t want to see you give up.”

“I’m not giving up,” Thorin says, painfully aware that giving up is exactly what he’s considering. He scowls and turns to Gandalf. “You’re sure tonight’s venue hasn’t dropped us?”

“I’m sure,” Gandalf says.

“And you’re certain your friend will be there?”

“Yes,” Gandalf says. “He will.”

Thorin thinks about going home. Not home to the house he grew up in – that was sold when his father’s and grandfather’s record company went under. Home to his apartment in Denver, with the door that won’t open when it gets cold and the shower that turns icy if someone three floors up flushes the toilet. Home to his apartment with the neighbor’s cat who sneaks onto Thorin’s balcony and pisses on Thorin’s bonsai tree five times a week – honestly, he’s not sure how the tree’s survived this long. It’s safe from the cat for now, at least; it’s with his sister. Beyond the goddamn tree, there’s nothing in Thorin’s apartment that he cares about. Nothing he’d miss if it were gone.

He makes up his mind in an instant. “Fine. One more show.”

“Yes!” Fili leaves off wrestling with Kili – Gandalf appears to have given up on keeping the peace – and leaps to his feet, singsonging the whole way. “It’s gonna be awesome, we’re gonna crush it –”

“Would you shut up?” Gloin bellows. Thorin glances back and sees him there on the ground with his fingers stuffed in his ears. “What in Durin’s name is going on?”

“There’s a scout from a record label coming to our show tonight,” Balin informs him.

Gloin sits up, burps cavernously, and grins. “That’s good news!”

“Yes. Yes it is,” Thorin says irritably. “Get everyone up. We’ve got three hundred miles between us and our next venue, and I want to be there with plenty of time to practice.”

Dwalin retches one last time and stands up, all business. “Right, then. Bofur, wake up!”

There’s a hollow thunk, which Thorin assumes is Bofur’s head hitting a tent pole. Bofur himself emerges from the tent a moment later. “What did I miss, lads? Breakfast?”

Over at the camp stove, Bombur flails a piece of half-cooked bacon on a meat fork in the air. Bombur is an individual of few words, but he rarely has difficulty making himself heard, and most of the band hurries over to the stove to fight over the food. Thorin doesn’t understand why they persist in fighting about it; there’s always enough. Kili and Fili toss themselves into the fray with wild abandon, and Balin follows at a slower pace. By this point, Thorin is very much wishing that he’d put on a shirt, but it’s too late for that and he’s not about to give Balin the satisfaction of seeing him find one.

The others seem to take Gandalf’s news as good news and nothing else. They’re talking excitedly with their mouths full and gesturing with knives, forks, anything that happens to be at hand, to underline their points. Gloin is pointing a sausage at Balin, who’s holding up a meat fork in self-defense. Watching them together, watching them happy, brings a smile to Thorin’s face. Then he thinks about tonight, about the deadline he’s set for their success or failure. His heart sinks.

He turns to Gandalf. “This was a bad idea.”

“On the contrary,” Gandalf says, studying the screen of his phone, “I think it’s a very good idea.”

“We’ve embarrassed ourselves,” Thorin says. “We keep embarrassing ourselves. If I broke up the band, they could all find work elsewhere. That would be better than dragging them along on the damnation tour that never ends.”

“Your band hasn’t lost heart,” Gandalf observes. “Why have you?”

“I haven’t _lost heart_,” Thorin snaps, “I’m facing the facts. Smaug stole my grandfather’s record label out from under him and burned it to the ground. I’m blacklisted at every label except this one you dug up. I highly doubt that tonight is going to be the moment where my luck changes.”

“It could be,” Gandalf says after a moment. “You never know.”

Thorin knows. He knows his family’s been through one disaster another since his grandfather made the colossal mistake of hiring someone whose personally selected legal name is DJ Smaug to be his Chief Financial Officer. Erebor Records is gone. Smaug has half the music industry in his pocket directly, and the rest won’t cross him for fear of him putting them out of business. Whoever owns this Rivendell Records company has guts to even think of signing Thorin’s band. Too bad Smaug’s going to rip them out as soon as Rivendell Records becomes anything bigger than a blip on his radar.

Speaking of blips on the radar – Thorin looks over at Gandalf. While Thorin’s been gazing off into the middle distance, Gandalf has been smoking. The air around Thorin is full of tobacco smoke, and he backs off, coughing. Gandalf looks concerned, then seems to remember that Thorin has a show tonight and Thorin needs to sing. He hastily stows his pipe. “Yes? What is it?”

“We need a new name. Any ideas?”

“No,” Gandalf says. He blows a speculative smoke ring. “But give me six hours and a few hundred miles and I am sure I’ll think of something.”

* * *

Kili has been painting a new drum skin. Thorin is supposed to be helping, but instead he’s dealing with his worst case of stage fright in, well, ever, and he’s not good for much other than drinking and nodding every so often. This is the fifth drum skin Kili has painted – in a brainwave that Thorin wished he’d had two months ago, he pointed out that redesigning their logo in addition to changing the band’s name might keep Smaug off their backs a few days or weeks longer. So Thorin put him in charge of both the new logo and the new name in an effort to keep him from getting underfoot while they set up for what will very likely be their last show.

Kili holds up the completed drum skin. His eyes are bright and he’s grinning – whatever he did, he’s excited about it. “What do you think?”

Thorin blinks. Kili has sketched a single mountain, rearing up high above the surrounding landscape, in blue. Below it, in black, a rough runic script spells out the band’s new name. “The Lonely Mountains?” Thorin says.

Kili’s face falls a little bit. “You don’t like it?”

“I like it,” Thorin says. Kili raises his eyebrows, and Thorin repeats himself. “I do. Almost more than the original name. It’s a shame we’ll have to change it in a few weeks.”

“Maybe not,” Kili says. Thorin can hear him trying not to sound hopeful. “Maybe this new label will sign us and we’ll never have to change it again.”

Thorin thinks that’s about as likely as his father coming back from wherever he fucked off to, or his grandfather coming back from the dead. “Maybe not,” he says, humoring his nephew.

Kili smiles and sets the drum skin down. “You know, I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

“Thanked me for what?”

“Letting me be in the band,” Kili says, and Thorin’s heart sinks even further. He told Kili he couldn’t join the band until he was twenty-one – too many liquor control issues – and at midnight on Kili’s twenty-first birthday he got a phone call. The next morning Kili and his drum set were on the bus. “I know it’s your thing – it’s always been your thing – but ever since I was a little kid I wanted to be part of it. Being able to tour with you is literally the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. Maybe the coolest thing that’s ever going to happen to me. So I just wanted to say thanks. I like being in The Lonely Mountains.”

Thorin hasn’t told anyone that this is going to be the last show. He thinks Gandalf knows, and Balin – and maybe Dwalin, although the band’s bass player is still battling nausea. So he just nods and drinks, nods and drinks, until Kili gets up and walks away.

Half an hour before the set is supposed to begin, Thorin is at the bar, still drinking and nodding. He’s not drunk by any means – the drink he’s nursing is drink number two in four hours – but he’s worn out after battling both despair and stage fright at the same time. The others are eating or poking around on the stage, doing last-minute tuning and equipment checks. Thorin has asked Gandalf not to tell him who the scout is, if the scout should even show up. It’ll just make his nerves worse.

Thorin isn’t even sure why he’s nervous. He’s been playing shows since he was sixteen, and even at his first show, he doesn’t remember being afraid. All he remembers is excitement, and the way he felt when he stepped out into the lights for the first time; like he belonged there. Thorin’s whole life has been music, and the last three years of it have been with different iterations of the band. Maybe that’s why it’s happening. Because he’s about to either lose the band or save it, and at this point, he’s not sure which one he wants.

Someone slides onto the barstool next to him and slips. A pointy elbow gets applied none-too-gently to Thorin’s upper arm, and he flinches. The person next to him is cringing so hard that he seems to be disappearing into his forest-green sweater. “Sorry, er, about your arm.”

Thorin just raises his eyebrows, too far gone to be anything but bemused by the situation. Or at least that’s what he thinks, until the man straightens up and adjusts his sweater. That’s when Thorin realizes he’s in a whole different world of trouble.

He’s – well, cute is the wrong word, and so is handsome, and hot just doesn’t seem right. Attractive is what Thorin settles on, even though this particular man looks as out of place in this particular bar as it’s possible to be. The sweater he’s wearing is probably more expensive than Thorin’s guitar, and probably vintage on top of that. He has golden-brown, curly hair, tousled in a way that looks accidental but likely isn’t. Good thing, too, because on top of the hair he has brown eyes, and Thorin has always had a weakness for brown eyes. Especially eyes set in a face like that – and Thorin can’t even describe it properly. There’s a reason he’s a songwriter and not a poet. So yes, attractive is putting it mildly.

He opens his mouth, hoping for the perfect opening line. Instead what he gets is this: “You look lost.”

“Lost?” Brown Eyes sputters. “No, I’m just here to –”

His elbow catches Thorin’s drink and nearly knocks it over. Thorin rights it automatically. Brown Eyes looks from the drink to Thorin’s face and winces. “Meet someone,” he finishes lamely.

“Of course you are,” Thorin says. That should solve the attractive problem, except it doesn’t, and then Thorin has to think of something else to say in order to avoid being rude. “Word of advice – if whoever you’re meeting doesn’t show in half an hour, just leave. This isn’t the kind of place you want to stay.”

“Why not?” Brown Eyes asks. He looks around at the bar – dart boards, dingy tables, bathrooms with the name and number of every supposed ‘ho’ in the tri-state area written on the stalls. “It seems like a nice place.”

“A nice place,” Thorin repeats, and snorts. Now he’s snorting. Thorin hopes either Fili or Kili is watching – he’s putting on a master class in how to tank your chances with the most attractive person you’ve ever met. “This is the place where dreams go to die.”

Brown Eyes sneezes. He withdraws a handkerchief – a _handkerchief_, for Durin’s sake – from his pocket and wipes his face. “You do know that’s frightfully pessimistic.”

“Pessimistic, realistic, nihilistic,” Thorin says. “Take your pick. That’s what’s on offer in places like this. Drink?”

“What?” Brown Eyes sneezes again.

“Do you want a drink?” Thorin repeats. He signals the bartender.

“Oh. Er, yes.” Brown Eyes says. He looks at the bartender. “Gin martini, please.”

Thorin takes a sip of his drink in order to avoid incredulously mouthing the words ‘gin martini’. Then he gives up on the whole sobriety thing and downs the rest of it. Brown Eyes has his drink now, and he’s looking at Thorin. Thorin would prefer if he didn’t do that. It just adds to the impression of attractive, and Thorin can’t deal with that right now. He studies his empty glass intently.

Unfortunately for him, Brown Eyes has decided that the burden of conversation is now his. “So, if this is such an awful place, what brings you out here?”

“Work,” Thorin says – grunts, more accurately. Now he’s grunting, apparently.

“What line of work?” Brown Eyes asks politely.

Thorin looks up from his glass and sees Dwalin over his shoulder, making a series of faces and hand gestures. He raises his eyebrows to indicate his confusion and Dwalin narrows down the flailing into one gesture – his index finger, tapping his wrist in the spot where a watch would be. The set’s about to start, and there’s Thorin’s way out of this situation. In a way, this makes him less concerned about meeting the scout, assuming the scout actually shows up. After his flameout in this conversation, there’s nothing he can do in the upcoming set that will be worse. He’s better at singing and playing guitar than he is at flirting.

“The kind of work that doesn’t pay,” Thorin says. He stands up. “Enjoy your drink. And the show.”

“The show?” Brown Eyes sputters, but by then Thorin is walking away.

He tuned his guitar half an hour ago, right before he went back to the bar for a final drink, but he keeps checking it anyway. His hair is falling in his face and he quickly braids part of it out of the way. When Thorin looks up, he sees Gandalf at the back of the bar, by the door. Gandalf makes eye contact, then gives a thumbs-up. The scout must be here. Thorin feels a flash of nerves run through him and he pushes them down. If this is going to be his last show, and it might well be, he wants to make it a good one.

They do the musical saw song first. It’s always a crowd pleaser. Midway through it Thorin glances back at the bar to see if Brown Eyes is still there. He is, and there’s a puzzled look on his face. Thorin looks away. The success or failure of the band is not dependent on whether or not the attractive man at the bar likes the musical saw song. They get quite a lot of applause – Thorin sees Oin beaming over the success of his solo, and better yet, Thorin sees people going to the band’s tip jar at the bar and putting money in it. Kili somehow found the time to decorate the tip jar with the new logo.

When he’s composing the set list, Thorin always makes sure a third of the songs are covers. The worst thing an unknown band can do is play their original music for an hour straight; it disengages the audience. Mix in a few things they’re familiar with along with the original music and it keeps the set running smoothly. Their first non-original is a John Denver standard, which is good; the second is Tom Petty, which goes over even better. And after two covers, they’ve won the crowd over enough to bring in more original songs.

It occurs to Thorin partway through that they are killing this set. Regardless of what happens with the scout, Thorin hopes he’s at least impressed. They may not be the type for Rivendell Records, but they’re damn good. Gandalf is at the back of the bar still, smiling contentedly. There’s another person Thorin will be disappointing if the band breaks up; Gandalf believed in them from the first, and he’ll be sad to see the last.

So will Thorin. Music has been his passion for as long as he can remember. But over the past three years it’s become his greatest stress, as he struggled to pull the band out of its agonizingly slow death spiral. It’s almost a relief to know it’s at an end. But he’ll miss it. By Durin, he’ll miss it.

Their next cover is Bruce Springsteen, one of Thorin’s favorites. It’s the last one before they close the set with an original, played back to back with a cover of Country Roads. That’s another one of Thorin’s set list rules. Always play Country Roads. They take their bows, as it were – no one bows in country music, so it’s more just awkwardly waving and backing up – and the rest of the band begins to file offstage. Thorin hesitates. It’s his last show. It doesn’t matter what he does next, because no one will remember it. And Thorin very much wants to sing one last song. Alone.

Thorin wrote almost all of the band’s originals, but he wrote almost all of them before his family’s record company collapsed; since then he’s been too tired or too upset or too stressed to write anything at all. But a few weeks ago, when they were driving from North Carolina to Pennsylvania late at night and it was Thorin’s turn at the bus’s wheel, the lyrics for a song came into his head. He had them all by the time they stopped, and he wrote them down before he could forget.

Thorin never showed it to anyone in the band, not even Fili, the group’s second-best songwriter. Not even Balin, who’s got a knack for predicting which songs will resonate with the audience and which won’t. He’s got no idea if it’s any good. But he sits down on the edge of the stage, sets his fingers on the fretboard of the guitar, and begins to play.

Drink a little more, talk a little slower, bring the roof back down

Close my eyes, let the dream go, think about my way out of town

Because it’s gonna be tomorrow in a few hours

The promises night makes, the day devours

This is what it’s like, living on the borderline

Oh, trouble, trouble is a friend of mine

Drive a little faster, drink a little harder, tell my sister not to worry

She believes in happy endings, and try as I might, I can’t make this that kind of story

Give it time, she says, it’s only bad weather

Hold on, she says, for things will get better

So I smile and nod and I toe the party line

Oh, trouble, trouble is a friend of mine

It’s a long way home by this broken road

I’m a long way from the light

It’s a long time since I saw your face

But I’m not coming home tonight

Living like this was never in my grand design

Oh, oh, trouble is a friend of mine

Thorin chances a look up as he plays through the bridge. It’s quiet. No one’s talking. He sees the light of one or two phones shining on faces, but no more. He’s got the audience. Thorin looks over at the bar. Brown Eyes is still there, just as quiet and still as the rest. Except not quite like them, because his face is alight – with happiness, maybe, and it’s not a happy song, which means he must like it. Something about this untitled, untested song has gotten to him. It makes Thorin strangely glad to know that his music still does that to people.

He gets a little lost in thought and nearly fumbles the bridge into the verse. Thorin kicks himself for mooning off after Brown Eyes mid-song and keys back in.

Let the day break, let the rain fall, let the sun rise

Give me just a second where I’m walking under clearer skies

Rewrite and rework it into allegory

But you already know it’s not that kind of story

Thinking of the ending sends shivers right down my spine

All of my faint lights, all of my old fights

Every day of sorrow and all of my cold nights

Still waiting for the day when all of my stars align

Oh, trouble, trouble is a friend of mine

Thorin picks out a last few notes and looks up at the audience. They’re silent for a moment. Then they’re clapping. A few of them are even on their feet. Out of habit, because it is habit by now, Thorin glances at the bar. Brown Eyes is gone. He checks the back of the bar. So is Gandalf. Thorin scrambles back up onto the stage, makes a quick bow, and retreats backstage in as dignified a manner at possible. Thankfully, he only trips on the amp cord once he’s mostly offstage.

“Easy there,” Dwalin says, shoving Thorin back to his feet. It’s a friendly shove, but it still feels like getting hit with a brick. “Seems you’ve been holding out on us, Thorin.”

“What?” Thorin says blankly.

“You didn’t tell us you were writing again!” Kili says, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “You haven’t written a new song in ages.”

Thorin is vaguely offended by this. “It hasn’t been ages.”

“Kind of,” Fili says. “But new song! New song is good!”

“Was it?” Thorin asks. “It’s sort of – moody.”

“Look, if Rascal Flatts is allowed to exist, you can sing two or three moody songs,” Bofur puts in. Bofur has a deep and abiding hatred for Rascal Flatts that Thorin has never quite understood. “It was the good kind of moody.”

“Yeah, not the typical I’m-beat-down-cause-my-girl-left-me song,” Nori says. “I liked it.”

“Hold up, how do you know it was a girl?” Fili says. “It could have been a dude.”

Nori seems genuinely puzzled by this for a moment; then he nods. “I guess so,” he says, and he carries on with coiling up the amp cord.

Ori comes bounding through the cramped backstage with the tip jar. The tip jar is very, very full. “Look at this,” he says. “We could go out to eat with this!”

Kili gives him a strange look. “We go out to eat all the time.”

“McDonalds is not the same thing as going out to eat,” Ori says. He sets the jar on a side table. “Oh, and Thorin, Gandalf wants to see you.”

Thorin hands his guitar off to Dwalin and makes his way out from backstage. Gandalf stands at the end of the bar, looking immensely pleased with himself. For some reason, this makes Thorin nervous. He approaches Gandalf cautiously. “What is it?”

“Congratulations on your set,” Gandalf says. “That was quite a show. And quite a new song.”

“Look, why is everyone harping on the new song?” Thorin asks.

“Because you haven’t written a new song in three years,” Gandalf says pleasantly, “and the new one was not bad at all.”

“It’s not that good,” Thorin says, losing patience. “The lot of you are only excited about it because it’s new. And besides, Gandalf, you didn’t call me out here to talk about the new song.”

“No,” Gandalf agrees. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

The scout. Thorin squares his shoulders and nods. Gandalf beckons someone out of the crowd, and Thorin has a premonition that what should be a good thing is about to go very, very badly – right before Brown Eyes steps out of the crowd to stand at Gandalf’s side.

“Thorin Oakenshield, this is Bilbo Baggins,” Gandalf says, patting Brown Eyes – no, Bilbo Baggins – on the shoulder. “He’s a scout with Rivendell Records, and he’d like to sign The Lonely Mountains.”

Thorin tries to prevent his jaw from dropping. He stares at Bilbo Baggins. “Is that true?”

Bilbo Baggins shifts from foot to foot. “Er, yes. It’s true.”

“He’s not making you do it?” Thorin points at Gandalf.

“No,” says Bilbo Baggins, looking somewhat affronted by the question. “I’m the scout. It’s my decision.”

This is all sounding a little too good to be true. Thorin crosses his arms. “Tell me, Mr. Baggins, have you ever worked with a country band?”

“No, but –”

“Do you have any experience in this side of the industry?” Thorin asks. “Have you ever worked with a blacklisted band?”

“No,” Bilbo Baggins says, “but I hardly see how that’s relevant.”

Gandalf is glaring at Thorin over Bilbo’s head. Thorin pretends he doesn’t see it and carries on torpedoing his band’s chances of getting signed. “You look more like a librarian than an agent. Smaug would eat you alive.”

Bilbo Baggins has passed from somewhat affronted into extremely affronted. There are twin spots of color high on his cheeks. “Look,” he says, “I may not have worked with a country band before. I may not have worked with a blacklisted band before. And I’m not frightened of – you did say Smaug, didn’t you?”

Thorin nods. Gandalf’s turned up the wattage on his glare, and Thorin checks his own behavior, wondering what in Durin’s name he’s doing. They have a chance, another chance – maybe their last chance. And he’s ruining it. Thorin doesn’t have to ask himself why. If he ends the band’s journey tonight, he won’t have to get his hopes up again, and he won’t have to watch Smaug dash them for the thirteenth time. Thorin’s basically allergic to hope at this point.

But he keeps his mouth shut, and Bilbo Baggins keeps talking. “I’m not afraid of Smaug,” he says, and Thorin nearly throws up his hands, “but I know good music when I hear it. I know talent when I see it. And I’m going to sign your band whether you want me to or not.”

Thorin just stares at him. He opens his mouth, but when no words are forthcoming, he closes it again. Gandalf stops glaring and starts looking bemused. It takes nearly a minute of heavy silence before Thorin figures out what to say. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Well, then, you should probably want me to sign you,” Bilbo Baggins says. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and folds them behind his back. “Don’t you think?”

Thorin glances back over his shoulder. The other twelve members of the band have jammed themselves into the doorway leading to backstage. They seem to have discerned that the person Thorin is talking to is the scout, and they look varyingly hopeful, nervous, or in the case of Bifur, who’s trapped between Bombur and the doorframe, uncomfortably compressed. Balin is nodding and smiling. Dwalin is nodding without the smiling. Kili gives Thorin a thumbs-up.

Thorin makes up his mind in an instant. His band believes in him. They’ve always believed in him. And regardless of how he feels about hoping, how worried he is that he’s going to fail, he owes it to them to see this through.

“Then sign us,” Thorin says. He uncrosses his arms and extends a hand to Bilbo. “Deal?”

Bilbo hesitates, then shakes Thorin’s hand. His hand is almost ridiculously delicate compared to Thorin’s. Thorin tries not to have any feelings about that at all. “Deal.”


	2. Chapter 2

“We should be on the road already,” Thorin hisses. “What is taking him so long?”

“He’s your agent now,” Gandalf says peacefully. He’s smoking again, and based on the smell, it’s somewhat stronger than tobacco.

“You’re our agent,” Thorin says.

“Yes,” Gandalf says, “but I’m getting old. Bilbo’s very good at his job. At some point you’re going to have to trust him.”

“Trust him? It’s nearly midnight,” Thorin snaps. “If we don’t hurry, Bofur will be too tired to drive and we’ll have to camp on the side of the road. Again.”

“Give him time,” Gandalf says. Thorin has informed Gandalf multiple times that whatever he’s smoking is not legal in most states, but Gandalf has a knack for never getting caught – even when there’s a police officer right in front of them. “And Thorin, you should relax. Celebrate. You’ve had a very good night.”

He’s right. Thorin still scowls.

By any unknown band’s standards, it’s been a very good night. Drink sales at the venue spiked so high that they got a small cut of the revenue on top of their agreed-upon pay. Add that to the hundred and fifty dollars in the tip jar and they’ve made a profit for about the second time since they went on tour. Beyond that, they got signed. The rest of the band is in high spirits. But Thorin is not, because getting signed to Rivendell Records apparently means taking your signing agent with you on tour, and Thorin finds it very hard to concentrate when Bilbo’s around.

That’s probably why he overreacted when he found out. “You are not coming on tour.”

“Yes, I am,” Bilbo said. He was standing there with a rolling suitcase and a backpack, looking for all the world like a software engineer going on a business trip. “I’m your agent now, and I have a lot of work to do. Besides, I’m always up for a road trip.”

A road trip. Durin help him. “This is not a road trip,” Thorin said. “We don’t eat at fancy restaurants and we don’t sleep in five-star hotels. We camp most nights. Outside.”

Bilbo blanched a little bit, and Thorin thought that maybe he’d gotten himself off the hook. Then Bilbo wrinkled his nose and squared his shoulders. “I’m coming along. End of discussion.”

That was most definitely not the end of the discussion, but Bilbo won the argument, and it burns Thorin just to think about it. Bilbo Baggins is joining them on tour. Bilbo Baggins is their agent, now that Thorin and the others have signed the papers. Bilbo Baggins, at the moment, is nowhere to be found.

“What did he say he was doing again?” Thorin demands. They’ve been standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot for twenty minutes. It’s the only place in town that has WiFi and is open all night.

“Something that requires internet access,” Balin says, coming up to stand beside Thorin. “He wouldn’t say what. He seems like a nice fellow. Very particular.”

“Particular? Particular is putting it mildly,” Thorin grumbles. “He disinfected his hand after I shook it.”

“He did not,” Gandalf says.

“Then what was he doing?”

“He spilled his drink on himself when you turned around,” Balin says. “I was watching.”

Excellent. Not only is Bilbo Baggins absurdly fussy, he’s clumsy on top of it. “Don’t let him touch the equipment,” Thorin says. “Or the instruments.”

Bilbo Baggins comes hurrying out of the store, his laptop tucked under one arm. His laptop probably costs three months of Thorin’s rent, and it’s in much better shape than Thorin’s is; last week Thorin had to duct-tape his laptop’s battery into place to keep from losing it. Bilbo nearly trips over a crack in the pavement and comes to a stop next to Thorin, Balin, and Gandalf.

“Apologies,” he says. “Anyway, that’s all done. What’s next?”

“What were you doing that took half an hour?” Thorin demands. Balin steps on his foot.

Bilbo blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Well, I was filing trademark applications.”

“Ah,” Gandalf says. He takes a drag off of his pipe and exhales a few smoke rings.

Bilbo waves them away, coughing. “Is that _marijuana_?”

“Keep your voice down,” Thorin snaps. They may have more money now, but not enough money to bail Gandalf out of jail on drug charges. He returns to the original point. “Why on earth were you filing trademark applications at midnight in a Wal-Mart?”

“I needed to trademark the band’s name and logo,” Bilbo says. Thorin just stares at him, and he starts looking nervous. “Well, it’s yours now, anyway. I put the trademarks in your name. Now if anyone but you and your band uses that logo or tries to call themselves The Lonely Mountains, you can sue them.”

Thorin doesn’t have the money to sue anybody. And he definitely doesn’t have the money to file a trademark application. “We can’t afford a trademark.”

“Now you can,” Bilbo says. He shifts his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet and back again. “You signed the contract, which means you’re part of Rivendell Records, and we have a discretionary fund for things like that. Not enough to cover fancy restaurants and five-star hotels, but enough for two trademark applications.”

Thorin gets the sense that he’s being mocked. He glances left, at Gandalf, and right at Balin to confirm, but neither of them seem very concerned about it. Gandalf looks entertained by the whole thing, and Balin is patting Bilbo on the shoulder. “Good lad,” he says. “Let’s get on the road.”

He leads Bilbo towards the bus, still parked behind the bar across the street. Only in a small town do you get country-western bars on the opposite side of the street from Wal-Marts. Gandalf takes one last puff on his pipe and ambles across the parking lot at a slower pace. Thorin stands there for another moment, inexplicably frustrated with the situation, then storms off after them.

The other band members have mostly finished stowing the equipment and instruments in the baggage compartments. Bilbo hurries over to help, laying hands on a very large instrument case. Thorin cringes. “Put that down.”

Bilbo stops in the act of lifting the case, annoyed. “What? I’m just trying to –”

“Put that down, boy,” Dwalin rumbles. “Or I’ll crack your skull like an egg.”

Bilbo seems to shrink. He hands Dwalin the case and backs up, directly into Bofur. “Oh, don’t mind him,” Bofur says cheerily. “He doesn’t let anyone touch his bass.”

“Nobody touches my bass,” Dwalin says. Thorin rolls his eyes.

“Anyway,” Bofur says, taking Bilbo’s suitcase and storing it in the compartment, “I’m Bofur. Pleased to meet you.”

“Yes. Bofur.” Bilbo squints at him. “What instrument do you play?”

“Flute, clarinet, piccolo. Only thing I don’t play is bassoon. Thorin doesn’t write music for bassoon,” Bofur says. He closes the compartment and gives it a kick to make sure it stays closed. “And I drive the bus.”

“Yeah, Thorin, are you sure we should keep letting him do that?” Kili asks. He’s already on the bus; he shouts this question from a half-open window. “He almost got us killed last night.”

“Almost doesn’t count,” Gloin says. He stuffs a duffel bag into the remaining compartment. “Besides, in a fight between our bus and a moose, I’d bet on the bus.”

Bilbo’s eyes widen. Thorin, meanwhile, is thinking that he wouldn’t bet on the bus in a collision with anything larger than a woodchuck. “Bofur is driving,” he says.

“I can drive!”

“Your license is still suspended,” Thorin says. Kili scowls at him. “Pay your parking tickets and put your head back in.”

Gloin closes the last luggage compartment and climbs onto the bus. Dwalin and Bofur follow him, and Gandalf is already on board, which means Thorin is stuck out here with Bilbo, who is standing there with his laptop under one arm and his backpack slung over one shoulder. He looks very concerned. And very attractive.

Thorin grits his teeth. He gestures at the bus. “Go on.”

Bilbo doesn’t move. The band’s new agent seems temporarily poleaxed by the knowledge of what he’s really gotten himself into, and Thorin doesn’t have the patience or self-control to coax him out of it. Finally, Thorin just climbs onto the bus himself, and when he glances back over his shoulder, he sees Bilbo following him.

Bofur greets Thorin when he climbs the steps, and then Bilbo. “Mr. Baggins, what do you think of our bus?”

“It’s – nice,” Bilbo says. Bilbo is not a good liar. “Is it yours?”

“Oh, we own it outright,” Bofur says. He pats the dashboard affectionately. Thorin wishes he wouldn’t – pieces of the bus have fallen off for less. “We got it for cheap.”

Bilbo closes the bus’s double doors behind him. Unfortunately, he closes them a little too hard, and the rearview mirror falls off. Thorin manages to catch it before it hits the floor and breaks. “Nori! Duct tape!”

The roll of tape comes sailing up the aisle from the back of the bus. Thorin rips off a piece with his teeth and goes to work reattaching it. He glances over his shoulder at Bilbo, who is beginning to look a little shell-shocked, and turns to Bofur for help. Bofur looks from Thorin to Bilbo and nods knowingly. “We got it for really cheap.”

Bilbo doesn’t make a move to proceed further onto the bus. Instead he just stands there on the steps. Thorin realizes after a moment that Bilbo is waiting for him to move, but right when he thinks he’s reattached the mirror it falls off again, and he tears off another piece of duct tape and goes back into the breach. Bilbo attempts to sidle past him, trips on the top stair, and falls into Thorin face-first. His head hits Thorin’s chest. He grabs onto Thorin’s shoulders for dear life and hauls himself upright.

They’re nose to nose – or they would be, if Thorin weren’t about seven inches taller than Bilbo. In any case, the physical proximity isn’t helping Thorin’s concentration at all. He pivots so that he’s facing the aisle and pushes Bilbo back to his feet. “Sit down.”

“Bilbo!” Gandalf calls from a seat midway down the aisle, across from Fili and Kili, who purchased a bag full of snacks at the Wal-Mart and can be reliably counted on to share. “Come sit by me. We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

Bilbo throws a last glance at Thorin and scurries off to sit by Gandalf. Thorin, for his part, slumps into the seat just behind the driver. Bofur buckles himself in and looks back over his shoulder. “How far are we headed, Thorin?”

“As far as you can get us in two hours,” Thorin says. His head hurts. Too much emotion, and too much alcohol earlier in the evening. This is why he doesn’t drink. “Then we stop.”

“The map says there’s a campground a hundred and fifty miles east of here,” Balin says. He’s two rows behind Thorin with the AAA map unfolded over both seats. “Show up at night, pay in the morning. Can we get there in two hours?”

Bofur cracks his knuckles. “I’m going to have to break a few speed records, but it’s doable. Thorin?”

“Go as fast as you have to,” Thorin says. “We’re not camping on the side of the road two nights in a row.”

Thorin’s expecting a repeat of last night’s drunkenness as the bus gets underway, but instead the rest of the band seems happy, but tired. Most of them are snoring by the time Bofur merges onto the freeway and clears the speed limit by a good fifteen miles. Thorin draws his backpack from beneath his seat and lifts out his phone. Two texts, both from his sister – asking what happened in Chicago, and asking why Kili sent her a photo of himself with a black eye. Thorin is going to have a talk with Kili later about what information he shares with his mother, because every time Dis hears something she doesn’t like, Thorin’s on the hook for it.

_What happens on tour stays on tour_, he told her once.

She’d given him a look. _That’s what Dad always said_.

Dis thinks Thrain is dead. Thorin can see why she thinks that – after all, when your beloved father up and vanishes out of nowhere, it’s easier to think _dead_ and solve the problem than to think _alive_ and deal with the questions that come with it. Thorin thinks he’s alive. More specifically, he thinks Thrain saw the writing on the wall and bailed out before Thror’s curse could work its will on him. Which would have been fine, if he didn’t have two children and two grandchildren who would presumably have benefitted from having him around.

Most families have a dirty secret. Thorin’s family has two. Almost no one knows that his grandfather killed himself – they claimed the cause of death was a heart attack and had a closed-casket funeral so no one would see what was left of his face. And of the people who know that, only a few of them know why he did it. A hundred years ago they would have said madness ran in Thorin’s family. The way it’s described now is a lot less melodramatic. But that doesn’t make it any easier to think about.

_So don’t think about it, then_. Thorin texts his sister back, explains that the Chicago gig fell through, and invents an excuse on the fly for why Kili’s face is black and blue. Then he unearths his ancient laptop and starts piecing tomorrow night’s set list together. Then he’s out of things to do and they’ve still got another hour on the road.

Thorin glances back at the rest of the band. Most of them are asleep, Kili and Fili included. Their bag of snacks has been appropriated by Gandalf, who’s munching on them contentedly and humming to himself. Thorin can see the top of Bilbo’s head over the seats, but not much else. That’s probably a good thing. When Thorin blew his chances with Bilbo in the bar, he wasn’t expecting to have to work with him for the foreseeable future.

One thing’s for certain – nothing is going to happen between Thorin and Bilbo Baggins. It would make things complicated, and besides, Bilbo is probably regretting signing Thorin at this point, let alone allowing Thorin to buy him a drink.

Thorin leans back against the window and closes his eyes. He lets the performance play back through his head, from the opening to the band’s last song to Thorin’s own song. Try as he might, Thorin can’t figure out what possessed him to play that song. He’s meticulous about the songs he performs; he never plays one without running it by at least a few of his bandmates first, looking for advice on lyrics and notation. But he remembers the look on Bilbo’s face when he played that song. He was happy. Why was he happy?

“Thorin. Thorin, wake up.”

Thorin blinks. Balin is shaking him awake. “We’ve stopped for the night. Let’s set up the tents.”

Thorin nods, rubs his eyes, and sends Balin off to wake the others. Then he exits the bus, goes around to the baggage compartment, and starts pulling tents and tentpoles and sleeping bags out, tossing them into a pile on the ground. The rest of the band exits more slowly and less efficiently, yawning. Thorin hears Bilbo’s voice before he sees him. “It’s cold out here.”

“Yup,” Fili says. He’s retrieved the snack bag from Gandalf and is taking inventory of its contents.

“Do you always sleep on the ground?”

This time the answer comes from Kili. “Yeah. Stops the bus from turning into a gas chamber.”

Bilbo blinks and sputters. “A – a gas chamber?”

Thorin makes the connection a second after Bilbo and stands up. “Kili,” he snaps, and Kili jumps, “do you ever think before you talk?”

“Do I what before I what now?”

Thorin makes his way over to the three of them. He can’t tell if the expression on Bilbo’s face translates to offended or disgusted; then he decides it doesn’t make much of a difference in this case. “A gas chamber is somewhere they kill people. A bus is – a bus. Do you need me to explain the difference?”

“No,” Kili says, sulking. “I just meant –”

Fili takes it upon himself to elaborate on the point to Bilbo. “He means that someone in the band farts in their sleep – we don’t know who – and being in a confined space with that kind of thing is hazardous to your health.”

“Oh,” Bilbo says. “Thank you for, uh, warning me.”

“Any time,” Kili says, brightening up. “Oh, and on that note, you should never use the bus bathroom after Ori’s been in there, because –”

“Enough,” Thorin says, and he wades into the mess, extracts Bilbo Baggins, and retreats to a safe distance.

“I’ve just been getting to know Kili and Fili,” Bilbo says. “They are –”

“My nephews,” Thorin says. He needs to elaborate on that, but he can’t think of how without speaking ill of family, and that’s another one of Thorin’s rules. They’re back by the baggage compartment, though – Thorin extracts a tent, tentpoles, a foam mat, and a sleeping bag. He pushes them into Bilbo’s hands. “Remember what these look like. They’ll be yours from now on.”

Bilbo looks at Thorin; then he looks down at the camping gear in his arms. He looks utterly baffled, and utterly – well, cute is perhaps the right word for this expression. “These are mine?”

“Do you need someone to show you how to set them up?” Thorin says, losing patience with himself and the whole situation in short order.

“N-no. No,” Bilbo says. He squares his shoulders and stands up to his full height, which is still seven inches shorter than Thorin’s. “I can do it myself.”

And he wanders off, looking for the perfect spot to pitch his tent.

Dwalin sidles up next to Thorin. “Five dollars says he can’t even set it up.”

“No, he’ll set it up, and it’ll fall in on him once he’s inside,” Nori says, appearing on Thorin’s other side. “And make it ten.”

“Ten it is,” Dwalin says. He turns to Thorin. “You want in?”

“In on – what? No,” Thorin says. “He’s our agent. He took a chance on us. We are not going to haze him.”

Dwalin and Nori are both giving him strange looks. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

“No,” Thorin growls. He picks up his own camping gear and walks away.

He sets up his tent in record time and crawls inside, zipping the flap shut behind him. The sooner he falls asleep, the sooner he can wake up with a clear head and put today’s mess of emotions behind him. Thorin tries to focus on the positive. He is not going to have to break up the band. He debuted a new song tonight, and it was well-received by any standard. His band has been signed to a record company, and their logo has been trademarked, for Durin’s sake. And all of those things are plausible. Thorin’s band is good. They’ve always been good. The band is not the problem. Thorin’s always been a decent solo performer. Thorin is not the problem.

The problem, Thorin realizes, is Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo Baggins is an unknown quantity, and Thorin doesn’t trust unknown quantities. Likely as not, Bilbo Baggins is going to sleep on his decision to challenge Smaug, wake up tomorrow morning, and realize that hitching a fledgling record company to the anchor that is Thorin’s band is a recipe for disaster. Thorin rolls over his back, trying to get comfortable, and wonders what it would be like to not distrust every bit of good news. It must be nice. Peaceful, even.

Somewhere out in the campsite, Thorin hears a clatter, followed by a yelp – and then several tents unzipping at once. He sits up. “Hey now,” Bofur says, concerned. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” Bilbo Baggins insists. He sounds desperate to be left alone. “Nothing to see here! You can all go back to sleep.”

“If you say so,” Bofur says, retreating back into his tent.

Thorin, who has no trouble picturing what just happened, lies back with a slight smile on his face. The silence lasts for another moment. Then Nori’s voice, gloating and triumphant, floats over the campsite. “Pay up, Dwalin, you rockhead.”

The reply comes back a second later, and it sounds like it’s coming through clenched teeth. “In the morning, fuckface.”

Neither of them speaks again, which is fine by Thorin. He rolls back onto his stomach, pillows his head on his arms and his arms on his pillow, and does his best to fall asleep. It’s about another half an hour before it works.

* * *

This time, Thorin hears Balin’s footsteps before Balin unzips the tent. He draws his feet out of kicking range and sits up. “Don’t,” he warns as Balin pokes his head inside. “What time is it?”

“Seven am. Bombur’s making breakfast.”

Thorin rubs his eyes. Then he remembers last night’s events and scrambles out of his sleeping bag. “Where’s Bilbo Baggins?”

“Ah, well, that’s why I’m waking you,” Balin says.

Thorin’s heart sinks. “I knew he’d bail out.”

“No, he’s still here,” Balin says, and Thorin’s heart leaps so high and fast that it gives him whiplash. “But he’s doing something very strange.”

“What do you mean, strange?” Thorin asks. It’s too early in the morning for this many feelings.

“Come see,” Balin says. This time, Thorin grabs a shirt before exiting the tent.

At first Thorin thinks it’s one of the foam sleeping mats that Bilbo Baggins is – well, Thorin doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing – but a second glance at the mat reveals that it’s too thin to be one of theirs. And as far as Thorin knows, none of theirs are purple. Bilbo appears to be stretching; he’s on his knees, upper body bent over them, arms extending out in front of him. Then he shifts forward, putting all of his weight on his forearms, and unfolds his legs, pushing himself into the air. Thorin watches in a mix of interest and horror as Bilbo slowly extends his legs above his head, his back arching up. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he bends his knees forward over his head, toes pointed. It’s an utterly improbable position. And yet Bilbo Baggins makes it look easy.

That’s when Thorin knows he’s in trouble.

He turns to Balin. “You’re right,” he says. “It is strange.”

“It’s not strange at all,” Gandalf says, approaching. “It’s yoga.”

“Yoga,” Thorin repeats.

“Yoga,” Gandalf says amiably. “You should try it, Thorin. It’s supposed to be relaxing.

Bilbo looks almost comfortable. Thorin tries not to stare. If he tried that he’d break his neck. “I can’t think of anything less relaxing than that.”

Gandalf smiles and shrugs. Thorin turns away from whatever Bilbo Baggins is doing and heads back towards Bombur and whatever he’s cooking on the stove. Balin follows him. After a moment, so does Gandalf. Thorin is already eating his share of breakfast when Bilbo shows up, flushed and slightly sweaty. Thorin would bury his head in his hands if they weren’t occupied with the food.

Bilbo accepts a plate from Bombur with a smile. He sits down at the picnic table next to Bofur. “So,” he says, “what are we doing today?”

“We,” Balin says, because Thorin has stuffed so much food into his own mouth as to render him incapable of speaking, “are on our way to our next venue.”

“Yes,” Bilbo says, “and where is that?”

“Fargo, North Dakota,” Kili says. “You know, like the movie.”

“The movie where they put that guy’s body parts in a wood chipper?” Bilbo says. “That sounds promising.”

“It was a _movie_,” Thorin says, swallowing the rest of his food. “We’ve played at this venue before. It will be fine.”

“Yes,” Gandalf says. “I’ve called and confirmed it already. The owner did seem unhappy to be woken up.”

Thorin tries not to think about that.

“Mm.” Bilbo tucks into his breakfast, apparently having forgotten about the body parts in the wood chipper. Thorin himself is struggling to get the image out of his head. “We’ll want to start getting you into bigger venues, of course. Preferably soon.”

“By all means,” Thorin says, “if you can find a bigger venue that will take us, _we_ will be happy to play there.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Bilbo says.

Thorin glares at him. Attractive as he may be, Bilbo Baggins is starting to piss him off. “Do you think we’ve been playing in every dive bar in the Midwest for fun?”

Bilbo raises his eyebrows, suggesting that he thinks that’s exactly what Thorin’s been doing. Of course. It’s Thorin’s luck to wind up with an agent who has absolutely no idea of what he’s getting himself into. Said agent changes the subject. “I’ll also want to see your set lists. And if you have all of your original songs compiled somewhere, I’d like to listen to them.”

“They’re on Spotify,” Ori says. “Put ‘em there myself.”

“I looked,” Bilbo says, “and I couldn’t find them.”

“They’re under a different name,” Dwalin says. “I think that was a while ago?”

Thorin can barely remember one name ago. Moria Bound, Durin’s Day, Ered Luin - Arkenstone? “Try it under ‘Arkenstone’,” he says, and Bilbo nods. “The next time there’s WiFi.”

For someone so small, Bilbo Baggins eats alarmingly fast. He sets his plate aside. “Right,” he says. He gives his head a little shake, shifting his curls. He must have woken up early if he had time to do yoga and his hair. “How far is it to Fargo, North Dakota?”

Thorin stands up. “Far enough.”


	3. Chapter 3

Bilbo Baggins is in the row of seats across the aisle from Thorin, wearing headphones and typing away furiously on his laptop. Thorin has his own laptop open in what he feels is some form of self-defense. It took Bilbo less than half a day to lose patience with the WiFi situation. When they stopped in a slightly larger town for gas and food, Bilbo sought out and returned with a wireless hotspot. Thorin is also benefitting from the hotspot; he’s been playing online Scrabble for the past hour. He’d rather do that than scour the internet to see what Smaug’s been up since yesterday.

“Thorin? Thorin.”

Thorin looks up. He’s just played ‘kingdom’ on a triple word score – his computer-generated opponent may as well throw in the towel now. “What?”

Bilbo looks taken aback, and Thorin curses himself. He’s added a new rule to his list: Don’t be rude to the band’s agent. He composes himself. “Yes. What is it?”

“Well, we have a slight problem,” Bilbo says. “Your social media presence is nearly nonexistent. And all of your accounts are under different names.”

He’s sitting there with his legs crossed and his laptop balanced on his knee. Looking at him now Thorin would never have guessed that he was some sort of acrobat. “Who gave you the passwords? Ori?”

Bilbo nods. “It seems you use the Facebook page for announcements about your upcoming tour dates and nothing else. And you use Instagram and Twitter for – nothing, it looks like.”

“That sounds about right,” Thorin agrees. He glances back at his computer screen. His opponent has just played ‘horse’. Pathetic.

“If it’s all right with you,” Bilbo says, and it sounds to Thorin like he’s being very careful, “I’d like to take over handling The Lonely Mountains’ social media presence.”

“What would you do with it?” Thorin asks. He studies his letters. He’s hoping to get another triple word score off that K.

“Well, to start with, I intend to change all the account usernames to reflect the new band name,” Bilbo says. Thorin nods. “It also has not escaped my notice that your band is uncommonly large. I think we need a way of individualizing the band members, to make the lot of you easier to relate to.”

“All right,” Thorin says. “How?”

“I’m still working on that part,” Bilbo says. He scrunches up his nose in an expression Thorin has begun to recognize as thinking. “And I still need your set lists. I assume you keep them?”

Thorin nods again. He ignores the K for now and plays ‘hazel’ off the H in ‘horse’. “What do you need them for?”

“I want to get an idea of the structure of your shows,” Bilbo says. He runs a hand through his hair, something that surprises Thorin given how long it must take to get it to look like that. His hands are a lot smaller than Thorin’s – wide palms, short, narrow fingers. It would be hard for him to play a guitar. Slightly easier for him to play a piano, which at least offers workarounds.

_Stop looking at his hands_. In fact, Thorin would probably stop looking at Bilbo altogether if it wasn’t considered rude. As it is, his eyes keep getting caught on little things; Bilbo’s wrists, for instance. Thorin doesn’t think he’s noticed anyone’s wrists as an attractive attribute in his life. And it’s not just the wrists. It’s how Bilbo’s mouth tugs to one side when he’s thinking about something, how his nose will wrinkle when he’s thinking hard. It’s his hair, and most of all, his eyes. Thorin really does have a weakness for brown eyes.

Bilbo was saying something, wasn’t he? Thorin keys back in. “The structure? What do you mean?”

“Covers versus original songs, how you distribute them in the set, whether you take breaks.” Bilbo shrugs. He still has one headphone in, and he’s poking at the laptop’s keyboard with the opposite hand. “Little things, but when I’m trying to book you at larger venues, I need to be able to answer all their questions.”

“You’re very thorough about this,” Thorin says. It’s supposed to be a compliment. He hopes Bilbo takes it as a compliment – or at least, not an insult.

Bilbo looks up. He looks surprised. “This is my job,” he says after a moment. “I want to be good at my job.”

Thorin’s computer screen is flashing. He’s about to miss his turn. He hastily plays ‘chase’ off the S in ‘horse’ and looks up again. Bilbo’s returned his gaze to the computer screen, and Thorin, feeling sort of like he’s missed his chance at something, looks back down at his. The computer plays some useless three-letter word, Thorin clears his last three tiles, and he watches the game display its winner graphic for a few seconds before closing it out and pulling up the set list document he started last night. Thorin doesn’t usually use his computer, but he’s left his notebook in the baggage compartment again.

He’s a bit more self-conscious about the set list now that he knows Bilbo’s expecting to see it. He goes over every song, playing it through in his head, before attaching it to an email and sending it to Bilbo. Then Thorin opens another document and starts laying out rhyming pairs. He feels restless, and if he’s feeling restless, he might as well try to get a song out of it.

But that’s not the kind of song he’s writing today. In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever written this kind of song before. Thorin keeps poking away at it, because he doesn’t really have anything better to do, but he’s not sure if he likes the direction it’s heading in. Maybe he’ll pawn it off on Fili to sing lead. He doesn’t have to sing lead on every song he writes. It wouldn’t hurt the band for him to share the wealth.

Bilbo clears his throat, and Thorin slams the lid of the laptop shut in a hurry. Thank Durin for auto-save – Thorin may be uncomfortable with this song, but he doesn’t want to lose it, either. This time he doesn’t try to temper himself. “What?”

“Your Spotify playlist is missing a song,” Bilbo says.

“Oh? Which one?”

“Yours,” Bilbo says. Thorin looks at him, his mind utterly blank, and Bilbo explains further. “The one you sang at the end of the set last night. It’s not in your playlist.”

Thorin would rather melt through the seat, the floor, and down into the baggage compartment than answer this question. Playing an untried song before an audience is an idiot move by anyone’s standards, and Thorin’s standards are quite a bit higher than ‘anyone’s’. He can’t explain his actions any better than ‘this is my last show and I can do whatever I want’. He can’t explain that to Bilbo, either, because he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to let his agent know that he was this close to breaking up the band.

Bilbo is still looking at him expectantly. “It is yours, isn’t it? Not someone else’s?”

“Of course it’s mine,” Thorin says.

“Then why isn’t it on the band’s playlist? Are you thinking of going solo?”

“No!” This situation is getting worse by the second. Thorin is beginning to wish he’d just come out with the truth instead of letting Bilbo come up with increasingly bad reasons for the song’s absence. Why did he have to play the song at all? “It’s not recorded, all right?”

This seems to mollify Bilbo somewhat. “Well, the next time we pass somewhere with a decent recording studio, we should try to fix that. Do you have sheet music? I can send it ahead.”

“No sheet music,” Thorin says. He also has issues with the idea of sending any of the band’s intellectual property anywhere, but he’s going to wait to bring that up until Bilbo figures out what he’s dealing with in regard to Smaug on his own. “I haven’t transcribed it yet.”

Bilbo’s eyebrows lift. “Why not?”

He really is going to make Thorin admit it, isn’t he? “Last night was the first time I performed that song.”

“It was good for a first public performance.”

What does that even mean? “No, I don’t think you understand. Last night was the first time. Ever.”

“Oh.” Bilbo looks taken aback. “Is that so? I would never have guessed.”

Thorin opens his computer again. The weird new song is still there. “You’re a terrible liar.”

When he looks back up, Bilbo’s face is red – not embarrassed red, but affronted red. Thorin is getting way too familiar with that expression, and way too used to causing it. He resolves to back off a bit. “I’m not lying,” Bilbo says. “Usually when lead singers play a solo during a set, it doesn’t go well.”

Thorin wonders how many lead singers Bilbo has watched tank a solo. And how many of them wound up getting signed afterwards. “Why not?”

“Well, having a band backing you up instrumentally covers a lot of mistakes,” Bilbo says. “So does having backup singers. On that note, I’ve noticed you’ve only got the one. Fili, isn’t it?”

Thorin nods. “He’s the only one who likes to sing.”

“Is he the only one who can sing?” Bilbo asks. Now it’s Thorin’s turn to raise his eyebrows, and Bilbo starts backtracking. “There are thirteen people in your band. You’ve got one lead singer who plays guitar, one backup singer who plays banjo and guitar, one bass guitar player, one upright bass player, one drummer, one woodwind player, a pianist, a violinist, two accordions, one harmonica, and one guy who plays the musical saw.”

Bilbo is out of breath when he finishes listing off the various roles of Thorin’s bandmates. Out of breath Bilbo is quite similar to flushed and sweaty Bilbo in that both of them meet Thorin’s definition of hot. Thorin doesn’t want to be thinking about that right now. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying they could do more,” Bilbo says. “You don’t use every specialty instrument on every song. How many can sing, other than you?”

“Fili, Bofur, Balin,” Thorin says. Then he has to think about it. “Ori can sing if you get him tipsy first, but the last time we did that, he fell off the stage mid-set. Bombur can sing a little – Kili calls him the super bass.”

Bilbo smiles a little bit at that. “What about guitar? How many of them can play beyond you and Fili?”

“At performance level? Three, maybe,” Thorin says. He’d trust Dori with a guitar – he’s not the most expressive performer, but he’s solid as a rock. Gloin, also, but Gloin doesn’t like to stand too close to the front of the stage. And Kili can play, if they ever have a song where they don’t need him on drums. “We don’t have enough working instruments for that.”

Bilbo coughs into his fist. It sounds suspiciously like “discretionary fund”. Thorin fights back a smile. Even if he’s allergic to hope and utterly distracted by his signing agent, Thorin has to admit it – being signed to a record label has its perks.

* * *

They reach Fargo ahead of schedule, thanks mostly to Bofur’s playing fast and loose with the speed limits on I-94. Bofur has always had a soft spot for chaos. In any case, Thorin’s not complaining about the extra time. They’ve got equipment to load in, songs to rehearse, nervous band members to pump up. In fact, there seem to be a lot of nervous band members today – more so than there were last night, when Thorin was having his personal crisis of confidence. Thorin can’t figure out why. After Thorin watches Kili bump into an amp, drop his snare drum on his foot, and nearly burst into tears, he decides to appeal to a higher authority.

Gandalf looks up when he hears Thorin coming. He’s at the bar, schmoozing with the bartender and the owner, but he detaches himself from the conversation and comes to meet Thorin. “What is it?”

Thorin ushers Gandalf further away from the bar. This is not the kind of thing you want the people who hired you hearing. He keeps his voice low. “They’re off their game.”

“Oh, I don’t know if that’s true,” Gandalf says, observing them. By this point, most of the bandmembers are skilled enough to keep their nerves to themselves, but Thorin sees Fili giving Kili, Ori, and Nori a pep talk in the corner behind one of the bigger amps. “They’ll be fine once you’re onstage.”

“We’ve played shows like this a hundred times. They’re acting like they’re fourteen and it’s the school talent show,” Thorin hisses. “What’s going on?”

Gandalf hems and haws for a moment; then he’s smiling again. “It’s real to them now.”

Thorin tries to think this through. It doesn’t work. “I don’t understand. Why would it be real to them now? We’ve been on the road for months.”

“They want the band to succeed,” Gandalf says. “All of them have always wanted the band to succeed. But now that you have been signed, there is pressure on all of them, not just you. The band is good. They must be better, because none of them want to be the one who fails the others. Therefore – nerves.”

So it is nerves. The same kind of nerves Thorin was having last night. He looks at Gandalf. “How do you know that?”

“I majored in psychology at college.”

This is perhaps the strangest thing Thorin has ever heard Gandalf say. “You went to college?”

Gandalf smiles enigmatically and returns to the bar. Typical. He’ll point out the problem, but it’s down to Thorin to solve it. And Thorin doesn’t know how to solve this one. He can’t give the band the assurances they’re looking for. He stands there for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to think. The idea comes, and Thorin sets off across the bar to the table where Bilbo has set up shop.

Bilbo’s been scribbling in a notebook, but he looks up as Thorin approaches. “Yes?”

“I need you to go backstage,” Thorin says.

“No, that won’t do,” Bilbo says. He sets the pen down in the notebook, holding it open. “I need to watch the show.”

“Not for the entire show, just for a minute,” Thorin says impatiently. “You have to talk to the band.”

Bilbo blinks. His eyelashes are stupidly long. How did Thorin fail to notice that? Probably because he was so distracted by the eyes themselves, and now he’s staring again. By Durin, he needs to get a grip.

“Why do I have to talk to the band?” Bilbo asks.

“They’re off their game,” Thorin says. “They’re worried they won’t have a good show and you’ll drop them from the label.”

“Did they read the contracts before they signed them?” Bilbo looks at Thorin, and Thorin shrugs. If he had to guess, he’d say that Balin did – Balin, and nobody else. “Did you?”

“Does anyone read contracts all the way through?” Thorin asks.

Bilbo crosses his arms. “I do.”

“Of course you do,” Thorin mutters.

Bilbo ignores this. “Well, if any of you had actually read the contract, you would know that for the duration of the contract – two years, at which point a new contract can be signed – the contract can only be broken from the artist’s end. We’re a small label. We’ve found it eases artists’ nerves to know that we won’t abandon them.”

Thorin stares at him. His grandfather’s and father’s record company would never have agreed to that; Thror believed that uncertainty on the part of the artist produced better music, and Thrain was fairer to his artists but far from friendly. He’s never heard of a record company that actually cares about its artists at the moment it signs them. “That assumes a lot of risk on your part,” Thorin says after a moment.

“Not really,” Bilbo says. “We’ve been at it a few years now, and none of our artists have broken contract. All of them are doing well in their respective genres.”

He stands up. “In any case, I’ll go speak to the band. Watch my things, please.”

Thorin was intending to go with Bilbo, to gauge the band’s reaction, but Bilbo vanishes backstage before Thorin can turn around, leaving Thorin with nothing to do except watch Bilbo’s things. Bilbo’s things consist of a laptop, what looks to be the latest iPhone model, and a notebook bound in red leather and embossed with gold on the cover. It’s exactly the sort of item Thorin would expect Bilbo Baggins to own. It’s held open on a single page with a ribbon and a pen. Before he can think better of it, Thorin leans over and studies the open page.

The page bears yesterday’s date. Bilbo Baggins has very good handwriting, small and neat, evenly spaced. Thorin sees a list of bands and artists on the left side, some of them marked with an asterisk. Something on the right side has been circled multiple times in fine black pen. Thorin squints at it, and then he realizes what he’s looking at. The starred band names on the left side of the page are every last one of Thorin’s band’s previous names. Arrows have been drawn from them to the circled name on the right side of the page. Thorin’s name. Thorin’s name in Bilbo’s handwriting.

Thorin looks away fast, turning his eyes to the facing page. The handwriting on this side is the same, but it’s much smaller and closer together. The way someone writes when they don’t want their writing read. But something about the structure of the writing intrigues Thorin. Eight lines, then a blank line. Two more lines, then another blank line. Six lines. Blank. Then back to eight, and Thorin understands; lyrics, verses. Bilbo Baggins is writing a song.

Before Thorin can take a closer look at it, he hears the backstage door open, hears Bilbo’s voice, and pivots around to the other side of the table. Thorin thanks Durin he’s a decent liar, but Bilbo doesn’t seem to suspect anything when he returns. He’s tugging at the hem of today’s sweater. “Well, that’s them sorted,” he says, sitting back down in the chair.

“How did they react?” Thorin asks.

“Well, the little one nearly cried,” Bilbo says, “but the others seemed relieved. I hope they won’t worry about it any longer.”

Thorin will bet that the little one Bilbo is describing is Ori. He’s hoping it’s not Kili. “Good,” he says.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to film the performance,” Bilbo says.

“Why?”

“So I can put it on your Facebook page,” Bilbo says. “And your Instagram. People like to have an idea of what they’ll be getting into when they come to a show. I was thinking one cover and one original. You’ll have veto power over the clips, of course.”

What was it Gandalf said? _Bilbo’s very good at his job_. Gandalf was right. Thorin gestures at Bilbo’s table, then at the stage. “Can you get a good video from here?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Bilbo says. He extracts a miniature tripod from his backpack and fits his phone into it.

Thorin can see a problem with this plan, particularly if the venue gets the crowds they’re expecting. “What if someone sits in front of you.”

“If someone sits in front of me,” Bilbo says matter-of-factly, “that person will find out exactly how pointy my elbows are.”

“Like I did,” Thorin says without thinking.

Bilbo gives him a look. Thorin can’t tell what kind of look. “And my knees,” he says.

The backstage door opens again, and Kili sticks his head and one arm out. Thorin wishes they would just shout at him when they needed him instead of forcing him to decipher all the flailing and hand gestures. He jerks a thumb at his nephew. “I need to go.”

“Wait a moment, please,” Bilbo says. “I put a barstool backstage, stage right. Use it.”

“For what?” Thorin asks. At no point in the set does he sit down.

“If you’re intending to perform your solo again, and I assume you are,” Bilbo says, “you are not going to sit on the edge of the stage. It makes you look like a theatre student at an open mic night.”

Thorin is certain he’s felt more insulted than he does at this moment, but he can’t remember when. “Theatre student?” he manages.

“The point,” Bilbo says, either oblivious to Thorin’s anger or very good at pretending to be, “is that it looks juvenile, and the song you are singing is not a juvenile song. It deserves better. It deserves dignity – and so do you.”

Thorin feels like he needs to sit down. He becomes aware that he’s staring at Bilbo a moment before he realizes that Bilbo is looking at him with no small amount of concern. Thorin clears his throat. “If I decide to play the solo,” he says, “I’ll use the stool.”

“Stage right,” Bilbo says. He goes back to fiddling with his phone on the tripod.

Thorin heads backstage, feeling like he’s been hit over the head. Oddly enough, it’s not the worst feeling in the world.

* * *

Rather than being nervous, the band is positively enthusiastic – so much so that they keep rushing the beat, and Thorin has to count on Kili to bring them back. Kili may be somewhat of a liability for the band as far as driving and behaving in front other people, but he’s the best drummer Thorin has ever met in person, and on a night like tonight, he’s grateful for his nephew’s presence. The audience is equally enthusiastic, which only feeds the band’s desire to speed up, particularly when the audience starts clapping along to the beat.

Thorin’s set list is taped to the floor by his feet. Bilbo didn’t offer feedback on it, so Thorin assumed it was acceptable and went ahead. It’s not all that different from last night’s set. The order has been changed, and he’s switched out some of the covers for new ones. He didn’t put the solo on the list, partially because he’s not sure he’s going to do it again and partially because he doesn’t have a title for it. Instead he’s scribbled a line of question marks on the grid below the last song.

Thorin always checks the crowd for Gandalf, and finds him in his usual position at the back of the room. Then he checks on Bilbo. No one has sat down in front of him, and Thorin wonders idly if Bilbo had to apply his pointy elbows or knees to preserve his view. Thorin tries not to think about the fact that he’s being filmed. Then he remembers that Bilbo’s filming him, and that every time he looks at Bilbo he’s looking straight into the camera, and he doesn’t look at Bilbo for the rest of the set.

They close the set with a very old original, one Thorin wrote when he was still in high school. Then, for the encore – and they usually don’t get an encore – they play “Born to Run”. Someone in the audience wolf-whistles. Thorin thinks it might be Gandalf. He risks one more look at Bilbo. Bilbo is grinning.

That more than anything makes up Thorin’s mind about the solo. He remembers how Bilbo looked when he played it last night, and he’s interested to see if he can produce that reaction again. The rest of the band files offstage, and this time, Thorin goes with them – but only so he can grab the barstool from stage right and drag it to the front of the stage. When he glances at Bilbo again, he sees Bilbo smiling. A softer smile this time. Durin save Thorin from Bilbo Baggins. He reminds himself of another rule. No mooning after Bilbo – or anyone – mid-song, particularly when he’s performing solo.

It goes about as well as it did last night. Thorin thinks it might have gone better, because there’s more confidence and less resignation. He goes for tougher runs of notes and gets most of them; he stretches the bridge for a few extra bars to build tension. This time, he gets more than a few audience members on their feet. He bows, picks up the barstool, and exits the stage.

Dwalin greets him backstage. “No new song tonight?”

“It’s been one day,” Thorin says. “You expect me to produce a complete song in twenty-four hours?”

“No,” Dwalin says, as though this is a stupid idea Thorin came up with instead of something he himself said. “I thought you might have a few more in reserve.”

Thorin thinks about the song he was working on earlier. That one’s a long way from being performed, solo or otherwise. “No, just that one.”

“Right, then.” Dwalin turns towards the others. “Nori! Pay up!”

“Go to hell!”

Dwalin storms off in pursuit of Nori and his winnings, and Thorin stares after him. Betting on Bilbo is one thing. Now they’re betting on Thorin? He doesn’t like the idea that Nori expected a new song, or that Dwalin thought the idea of Thorin writing further songs ridiculous. As a songwriter, Bilbo is probably more prolific than he is. That is, if Bilbo was writing a song and not some obscure form of rhyming poetry.

Gandalf wades into the backstage area, congratulating each member of the band in turn. A moment later Bilbo follows him, but unlike Gandalf, he heads straight for Thorin. Thorin considers holding up his guitar to ward Bilbo off, but Bilbo moves surprisingly fast, and he’s in front of Thorin before Thorin can do anything about it.

Thorin speaks first. It’s basically self-defense at this point – he can’t vouch for what he’ll say in response to anything that comes out of Bilbo’s mouth. “Did you get your video?”

“I did,” Bilbo says. He seems to be having a hard time not smiling. “Last night’s show wasn’t a fluke, was it, then? You’re always this good.”

Thorin frowns. “If you thought it was a fluke, why did you sign us?”

Bilbo shrugs. “If you could do it once, you could do it again. Part of my job is to mentor emerging artists.”

Thorin wonders if he counts as an emerging artist. He’s been in and out of the industry since he was sixteen, and more in it than out since he went to college. He casts about for something else to say, never a good position to be in, and before he can stop himself he comes up with something stupid to say and says it. “I used the stool.”

“I saw.” Bilbo says. He smiles again, and Thorin briefly entertains the thought of knocking his own head against the wall. “You looked calmer up there. Like you weren’t ashamed of yourself any longer.”

“You thought I looked ashamed of myself before?”

“Oh, would you shut up? I’m already making a mess of this.” Bilbo sounds beyond exasperated, and Thorin, stunned, falls silent. “What I meant to say is, you had more confidence this time, and you won the audience much earlier in the song.”

Thorin blinks. Bilbo apparently interprets it as a sign of disapproval. “It was supposed to be a compliment,” he mutters.

Dumbstruck is the appropriate word for how Thorin feels at the moment. Too bad it’s about two letters too long for a Scrabble game. “So,” he says, scrambling to regain his footing, “the video. Which songs were you planning to feature?”

“Well, the last one, obviously,” Bilbo says. He squares his shoulders. “Born to Run is a classic, but it’s more of a rock song than country in its original iteration, and your version is much more of a hybrid. The lot of you are fairly good on camera.”

Thorin wouldn’t describe himself or his band as good on camera. They usually look somewhat disheveled during their sets, and instead of actually fixing or cutting his hair Thorin tends to braid it, which probably looks ridiculous. His skepticism must read loud and clear, because Bilbo elaborates. “No, I mean it. Everyone in the band looks happy to be there – they’re playing to the crowd. And you made eye contact with the camera a decent amount. Some artists stare into it like they’re trying to hypnotize it, and that tends to put people off.”

Thorin is glad his staring at Bilbo served a purpose. He’s not sure how to feel about having carte blanche to sneak glances at Bilbo during shows. “You’ve picked a cover. What about the original?”

“Well,” Bilbo says after a moment, “I was hoping you and the others could help me with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Ka-sphinx, wars_we_fought, and Eldikar_The_Magnificent for the reviews, and to everyone who left kudos. Y'all keep me posting.


	4. Chapter 4

Thorin has just realized that he hates the sound of his own singing voice. He also hates how his face looks at all times, from all angles. He hates the way he holds his guitar and even the way he stands. But mostly, he hates his voice. Or at least, he hates watching himself use it.

In an effort to help Bilbo with his video, he and the entire band have committed to watching the footage. The others seem excited to see themselves on camera, the younger three especially. “Look at me,” Kili says, delighted. “I’m all sweaty!”

That’s not something to be excited about, in Thorin’s opinion, especially because Kili’s stage makeup is running, and the only thing worse than a black eye on stage is a black eye that’s been poorly covered up. But he is impressed with Bilbo’s videography. In his filming Bilbo made sure to spend at least a few moments focused on each member of the band, and sometimes he zooms out to reveal the audience response. The sound quality is good. The camera is steady. In fact, the only thing Thorin dislikes about the video is how much he’s in it.

“Balin, you look like Billy Joel,” Dwalin says, elbowing his older brother.

“The fact that I’m playing the piano does not make me look like Billy Joel,” Balin grouses, but he’s good-natured about it. Meanwhile, Thorin is cringing, avoiding looking at the screen of Bilbo’s laptop, and hoping no one decides to comment on him.

Kili, for his part, is intent on the screen. “I look good,” he says. He’s smirking. “Really good.”

“Kili, you can rhapsodize about yourself later,” Thorin says. “We’re trying to accomplish something at the moment.”

“No, I mean it. I’m not even joking,” Kili says. “Were there girls in the audience?”

Thorin gives him a look. Anything to distract him from the video, and himself in it. “You know there were girls.”

“I couldn’t tell,” Kili insists. “None of them were throwing their underwear.”

Dwalin cuffs him lightly around the ears. “I’ve been playing shows for twenty years. Girls don’t do that.”

“Maybe not to _you_ –”

“As fascinating as this all is,” Bilbo says, cutting off what was sure to be an epic disagreement, “I need to cut and edit this video so I can post it by noon. Try to focus, or I’m kicking the lot of you out and letting Thorin pick.”

Thorin does not want to be left alone with Bilbo, or the video, and certainly not Bilbo and the video. He glares at Dwalin, who leaves off trying to put Kili in a headlock. Kili goes to retaliate, but is prevented by Gandalf, who calmly pushes his way into the huddle between them. “May I offer some insight?”

Bilbo twists around to look up at Gandalf. “By all means,” he says. “You’re more familiar with their music than I am.”

“Fast forward to 38:12,” Gandalf says. Bilbo does so, and once again Thorin’s front and center on the screen. Thorin cringes. “There. That one.”

Bilbo is nodding. Fili applies an elbow none-too-gently to Thorin’s side. “What do you think, Uncle?”

“Uh,” Thorin says. It occurs to him that this is probably unhelpful, but he can’t think of anything else to say. He doesn’t want Bilbo to put this video on the internet. He wants Bilbo to put it in his computer’s recycling bin and then empty it. As much as the band believes in him, and Gandalf believes in him, and apparently even Bilbo believes in him, Thorin is sure that putting a video of himself on the internet will tank his career faster than Smaug ever could.

“I don’t remember what this one is called,” Bilbo says. He’s writing something in his notebook. “Which is it?”

This time it’s Balin who elbows Thorin. From behind. Right in the kidneys. Thorin’s breath leaves him in a whoosh and he doubles partway over. “Suckerpunch,” Thorin wheezes, and Bilbo nods, writing it down. The irony of it is not lost on Thorin in the slightest.

“Good pick,” Bofur says from the driver’s seat. Thorin hopes he’s keeping his eyes on the road. “I’ve always liked that one.”

“It could be better,” Oin says. “It needs musical saw.”

Gloin gives his older brother a dirty look. “You think everything needs musical saw.”

“Everything does!”

“Thank you!” Bilbo says loudly. “I’ve got it. Go about your business.”

Ori makes a face. “Do we have to? I want to watch the rest of it.”

“I’ll send it to your phones,” Bilbo says, then smacks himself in the forehead, “and I’ll need all your phone numbers and email addresses. I should have gotten those ages ago.”

“I’ve got them,” Gandalf says. He fishes around in his pocket and produces a crumpled sheet of paper. “Put these in when you have time. Everyone else, give Bilbo some space. Go on, now.”

Gandalf shoos the rest of the band back to their seats. Kili, looking very pleased with himself, hangs back – at least until Fili grabs him and tows him back down the aisle to their usual seats. Thorin moves to join them but finds his way blocked by Balin. Balin shakes his head. “No, no. Go back to your usual seat. You have work to do.”

“No I don’t,” Thorin says.

“Yes you do. Writing songs,” Balin says. “I heard Bilbo and Gandalf talking – they’re planning to add more gigs to the tour, and we need more than twenty songs to rotate through.”

Thorin scowls. Partly because Balin is right, and partly because Balin heard about Bilbo’s plans for the tour before Thorin did. “Put Fili on it.”

“I have,” Balin says. “But Fili’s young, and his songs are catchy, but they don’t have a lot of depth yet. That will be fixed with more life experience, but we don’t have time to wait. We need you.”

“How many songs do you need? A whole album’s worth before the next show?” Thorin can’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

Balin doesn’t rise to the bait. Then again, Balin used to deal with Thorin’s father and Thorin’s grandfather, both of whom were far more difficult than Thorin. “No,” he says, “but it’s time for you to get back in the swing of things. Gandalf agrees. So does Bilbo.”

“So all three of you have been talking about me behind my back?” Thorin says. He feels like he should be angrier about this. As it is, he’s mostly relieved that he doesn’t have to look at the video anymore. “I suppose that saves me the trouble of listening to each of you bring it up on your own.”

Balin gives him a pitying look. “This is some pretty country we’re driving through,” he says. “Maybe that will inspire you.”

“Oh, go to hell,” Thorin mutters. Balin pats him on the shoulder, and Thorin heads back to his seat.

After the show in Fargo, they played a night in Bismarck at a bar, and then one more at the city’s only eighteen and over venue. The first show was planned. The second, Bilbo sprung on them when he learned that they weren’t supposed to be in Billings for another two days – and when the larger venue’s previously booked band underwent a dramatic breakup at the last minute. Thorin knows it was dramatic because he heard it, still in progress, while he and the others were loading in for the show. In any case, at two hundred seats, it was the largest venue Thorin’s played at in years.

Bilbo, like Gandalf, seems to have a knack for turning a less than ideal situation to his advantage. Knowing that the people who’d purchased tickets to see the original band would be disappointed and therefore much harder on The Lonely Mountains than they would be otherwise, Bilbo staged an impromptu meet-the-musicians session in the lobby, using Fili, Kili, and Bofur to represent the rest. He picked the same three Thorin would have picked, if it had been his idea. All three are presentable, all three are friendly, and all three can talk about music for hours. Thorin tried not to have any feelings about the fact that Bilbo didn’t pick him.

Kili, predictably, wound up taking selfies with half the people who showed up, and came back grinning. “I should let Bilbo pimp me out more often.”

“He did not _pimp you out_,” Thorin said. “You were representing the band. I hope you didn’t embarrass yourself.”

“No, no, Kili was excellent,” Bilbo said, hurrying backstage. Both his hands were full of pieces of paper, which he brandished at Kili. “You left too fast, though. Every girl at the meet and greet gave me their numbers to bring to you.”

“Yes!” Kili made a grab for the papers.

Fili saw this and lunged as well. “Hey, what about me?”

In any case, Bilbo’s plan seemed to assuage any disappointment on the part of the audience. Several people were waiting for them at the stage door when they left, and all of them wanted the band to autograph something of theirs. Thorin was caught completely unawares when one of them, a tiny, serious girl in a flannel shirt, asked him to sign said shirt. He didn’t even have a pen. But Bilbo appeared out of nowhere, pressed a Sharpie into his hand, and vanished before Thorin could say thank you. Thorin signed the shirt.

“Uncle Thorin, please don’t take this the wrong way,” Kili said as the girl walked away with Thorin’s signature scrawled across her shoulders, “but you need to work on your autograph.”

Thorin needs to work on a lot of things, and his autograph is nowhere near the top of the list. And yet, when he sits down in his usual seat just behind Bofur – and across from Bilbo – he practices his autograph for an hour straight. Anything to avoid actually writing a song.

Thorin’s mind drifts back to the lyrics he saw in Bilbo’s notebook. His handwriting was too cramped and too small for Thorin to get even an idea of what Bilbo was writing about. But there were no cross-outs, no underlining, no arrows dragging one verse into position above another, no wrangling over the minute differences between the first chorus and the last. Thorin’s lyric sheets, when he first starts working on them, are a mess, like he’s been wrestling with the lyrics instead of writing them. Bilbo’s song, whatever it’s about, came out perfectly.

“Thorin,” Bilbo says, and Thorin looks up, “how do you feel about adding another show?”

“Where?” Thorin asks, closing his notebook in a hurry. Durin save him if anyone finds out what he was actually doing.

“Well, you’ve got options, actually,” Bilbo says. “We can swing down into Wyoming after Bozeman, or head up further into Montana.”

“What’s in Wyoming?”

Bilbo is making a face. Sort of disgusted, somewhat unhappy, definitely nervous. Thorin doesn’t think it’s his fault – this time. “Laramie,” he says.

“No,” Thorin says, without bothering to think about first.

Relief washes over Bilbo’s face, but what he says doesn’t match it at all. “Missoula it is, then.”

Thorin likes the idea of Missoula more than he likes Laramie, but given how he feels about Laramie that doesn’t say much. “I don’t know,” he says after a moment. “It’s a college town.”

“So’s Bozeman,” Bilbo points out.

Thorin has a feeling that the next thing out of Bilbo’s mouth is going to be advice he doesn’t want. “Did you get the video posted?”

“Yes,” Bilbo says. “I posted it on Instagram and Facebook, and I put a preview clip on Twitter. I’ll retweet it again at four.”

This strikes Thorin as oddly specific. “Why four?”

“People are most likely to check their social media at lunchtime – that’s why I wanted it up by noon,” Bilbo says, “and at four, when they’re coming off work. I want that clip in front of as many eyes as possible.”

He closes his notebook. “Oh, and I’ll need the lyrics.”

“For Born to Run?” Thorin says incredulously.

“No, for Suckerpunch,” Bilbo says. Thorin raises his eyebrows, and Bilbo says, “It’s the sort of song people like to sing along to. I’d like to facilitate that.”

Thorin supposes that it’s a good idea. He opens up his computer to send them to Bilbo, then realizes that he’s never typed them up. He hasn’t needed to. It’s not a song with backing vocals, and all the rest of the band needs to know is when they’re supposed to come in. The only place they’re written down is in his songwriting notebook, the notebook he’s just spent an hour practicing his signature in.

“Give me a minute,” he says. “I’ll type them.”

Bilbo nods, but Thorin notices him moving out of the corner of his eye, unfolding himself out of his seat. Thorin keeps typing. Then he feels someone’s breath against the back of his neck and jumps. The back of his head hits Bilbo’s face. “Don’t _do_ that!”

“Trust me, this is not a mistake I intend to make twice,” Bilbo says. His voice sounds pinched. “Go on, then. Pretend I’m not here.”

Yeah, that’s going to work. Earlier today Thorin couldn’t imagine anything more awkward than watching himself on-screen, but he’s found a contender; typing up his own song lyrics while his very attractive agent, who he just head-butted, hovering over his shoulder. Add that to the fact that Bilbo is apparently also a songwriter, and Thorin is not happy with the situation he’s found himself in. He’s never been incredible at taking criticism, but this song is one of his favorites, and he’s not looking forward to Bilbo’s feedback.

Hit me up on a Saturday night

I won’t be pretty, but I’m ready to fight

Call me out in the city square

Me and my friends will meet you there

Oh, uh-oh, let it out tonight

I’ll take fisticuffs for two tonight

Left jab, right cross

Sucker punch me ‘til I’m black and blue

Nosebleed, black eye, knockout round

The crowd is counting loud

We all know I’m going down

Bruises like a badge of honor

Am I strong enough for you?

You’re in your corner, I’m on my knees

It takes everything I have just to breathe

The boy in the arena, the man in the ring

So unsteady that he’ll fall for almost anything

Oh, uh-oh, take me out tonight

I’ll take falling out for two tonight

Left jab, right cross

Hit me where it hurts until I’m caving in

Ribs cracked, eyes blacked, knockout round

The crowd is counting loud

We all know I’m going down

Bruises like a badge of honor

Step on up and we’ll begin

Left jab right cross

Shake my skull until I change my mind

Hands bleed, I need

To hear them counting loud

We all know I’m going down

Bruises like a badge of honor

Your eyes like stars align

I’m a prize fighter, moon lighter

Can’t you see my eyes on fire?

I’m starstruck out of luck

Clawing every step up higher

Everything I’ve ever done has been one hell of a fight

So step on up and try your luck

Strap on your gloves and try your luck

It looks like I don’t give a fuck

If I make it out alive

Left jab, right cross

I’m fighting for my one true soul tonight

Bones shake, heartbreak, knockout round

Can’t you hear them counting loud?

We all know I’m going down

But I’m not going down without a fight

I’ll take fisticuffs for two tonight!

Thorin attaches the song to an email and sends it to Bilbo. He’s sure that whatever Bilbo wants to do with it, he’ll do it from his computer. But Bilbo doesn’t move. Instead he stays there, uncomfortably close. “You know,” Bilbo says after a moment, “I don’t think this is quite a country song.”

“Do all the songs I write have to be country songs?” Everyone’s a critic today.

“No,” Bilbo says, “and I supposed that any song played by a country band becomes a country song, but there’s rarely this level of anger in them. Or fatalism, for that matter.”

Thorin is beginning to lose patience. “If you don’t like it, why did you choose it for the clip?”

“I never said I didn’t like it,” Bilbo says mildly. “I only said that it’s angrier than most of the band’s repertoire. It stands out.”

Thorin lets his head fall back against the seat, hoping that Bilbo’s had the sense to move. This day has been exhausting, and it’s not even one in the afternoon. He has a show to play tonight. And on top of that, everyone is expecting him to produce new songs. “Is there anything else?”

“Not at the moment,” Bilbo says.

“Then I’m going to sleep,” Thorin says. He closes both laptop and notebook and stuffs them into his backpack; then he lifts the armrest, slaps his backpack against the corner where the seat meets the wall, and lies down. It takes far longer than it should for him to drift off. Half-finished song lyrics chase themselves around his skull. He thinks about the song he just typed up and sent to Bilbo, and where he was and who he was when he was writing it. When Thorin’s not thinking of those other things, he’s thinking of Laramie – and when he’s not thinking about that, he’s thinking about the feel of Bilbo’s breath on the back of his neck.

Sometimes Thorin understands why Gandalf smokes so much. It’s exhausting to think of so many things all at once.

* * *

Whoever’s waking Thorin up this time is being a lot nicer about it than Balin typically is. A hand on his shoulder, gentle shaking, saying his name instead of kicking him repeatedly. Since there’s no kicking, the waking up feels a lot less urgent. He blinks slowly, stretches a bit. Then Thorin’s gaze sharpens, and he sees Bilbo Baggins staring down at him. Bilbo’s the one saying his name – which means, unfortunately for Thorin, that the hand on his shoulder is also Bilbo’s.

Thorin sits up, wishing he’d done so faster. He shrugs Bilbo’s hand off his shoulder with a sharp, frustrated movement. “What?”

“I have something to show you,” Bilbo says. His other hand, the one that wasn’t touching Thorin, is holding his phone. “Here.”

Thorin accepts the phone. It’s open on Twitter. He squints at it, then spots the thing Bilbo wants him to see. He has to admit it – he’s a little impressed. “How did you get our account verified so quickly? Ori’s been working on that for a month.”

“What?” Bilbo says. “Oh, the verification. That was easy. But that’s not what I’m showing you. Look at the tweet.”

Thorin looks at it. There’s The Lonely Mountains’ tweet, with the preview video embedded. The little blue check mark is by the band name. But the tweet’s embedded in another tweet, from another verified account. Thorin reads it. He nearly drops the phone.

He looks up at Bilbo. “How,” he says, “did you convince _Bruce Springsteen_ to retweet that clip?”

Bilbo rubs the back of his neck. He looks embarrassed. “I didn’t convince him at all. I just tagged him in the tweet. Look.”

Thorin reads Bilbo’s original tweet aloud. “Paying homage to the Boss and the E Street band in Fargo, ND. You know how it is with tramps like us. @springsteen.” Thorin isn’t good with social media, to the point where he doesn’t have it. “So you tagged him in the tweet, and then –?”

“It came up in his mentions,” Bilbo says. To his credit, he seems to be making an effort not to be patronizing. “Then he must have watched the videos. Read what he said in his tweet.”

“This song launched my career. Let’s see if it can do it one more time. Give @thelonelymountains a listen.” Thorin feels like he might faint. He’s never fainted in his life, but if there was ever a time to do so, this is it. “This can’t be real.”

“Not only is it real,” Gandalf says, popping up over the seat as well, “Mr. Springsteen has one-point-one million followers. All of whom are going to see that.”

“We started the day with five hundred followers,” Bilbo adds. “Now we’re up to ten thousand.”

“And climbing!” When Thorin cranes his neck, he sees Kili and Fili three rows back from him. Both of them are on their phones. “People have been tweeting about us, too. All of us, but mostly you.”

“Check it out,” Fili says. He reads aloud. “User albertwoods94 wants to know where The Lonely Mountains have been all his life. All caps.”

“That’s nothing,” Kili says. He’s smirking. “Some chick who goes by nuggetfucker3000 wants to lick your face.”

“My – what?” Thorin stares at him. He can’t decide if he’s more disturbed by the desire or the username.

A voice pipes up from further back in the bus. Ori, most likely. “Hey, Thorin, what are bedroom eyes?”

Thorin pinches the bridge of his nose. No question that starts out like that is going to end well for him. “Why do you need to know?”

“Someone on Twitter thinks you have them,” Ori says. “Her bio says she interns for Rolling Stone.”

Part of Thorin’s brain is occupied with exulting about the Springsteen acknowledgement – finally, here’s a piece of good news with no downside that he can see. The other part remembers what he was really looking at when he looked directly at the camera. He decides that he’s not going to think about that ever again. “Rolling Stone?”

“Your grandfather had to bribe the editor of Rolling Stone to get them to review one of his artists’ first albums,” Gandalf says. The skin around his eyes is crinkled, and he’s smiling. “You’re doing quite well for yourself, Thorin.”

Something about this sounds wrong. “Not me,” Thorin says. “Bilbo. All of this was Bilbo’s doing.”

He glances at Bilbo. Bilbo’s face is bright red. “No,” he says. “I just made the connection. Nothing would have come of it if it wasn’t for the music, the band.”

“And the band isn’t a band without you,” Balin adds. He’s three rows back and on the opposite side from Thorin. Dwalin sits next to him, scrolling furiously through his phone. “You wrote the original song, Thorin. You sang lead. You arranged Born to Run to feature an upright bass and two accordions.”

“That was a stupid idea,” Thorin says disconsolately.

Gandalf thumps him in the back of the head, which would be fine, if the back of Thorin’s head hadn’t had an earlier encounter with Bilbo’s face. “Thorin Oakenshield,” he says, “this is good news. Very good news. It would behoove you to react to as such.”

“And you should probably get used to it,” Bilbo says. The color has started to go down in his cheeks, and as dazed as Thorin is, he still has it in him to be captivated for a second. “According to my understanding of the concept, the lot of you have just gone viral.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Eldikar_The_Magnificent, LostGryphin, and Gerec for the comments. I love hearing what y'all think.


	5. Chapter 5

Thorin steps out of the bus and the wind blasts his hair back from his face. It’s just barely autumn, but there’s a bite in the air that makes him catch his breath. Thorin looks around. He sees dark pine forest, interspersed here and there with lighter-colored trees. The mountains rear up around them, jagged and capped with snow year-round. Thorin’s spent most of his life in the mountains. Not in Denver – Denver’s just on the edge of the flatlands, in the range’s shadow. Home is Vail, amidst the mountains. Like they are now.

“Well?” Bilbo is rocking from his heels to the balls of his feet, something he only does when he’s nervous. “What do you think?”

Thorin turns to Bilbo. “This was a good idea,” he says, and Bilbo smiles a soft little smile that makes the ground drop out from beneath Thorin’s feet. “I’m still not sure why we’re here.”

“You’ll know soon,” Bilbo says. His smile shifts – now it’s mischievous, like he has a secret. Thorin can’t help but smile in return. “Anyway, we should probably keep going. It’ll be dark soon, and I’ve heard Bofur has a penchant for hitting wild animals with the bus.”

“Hey now, that was only once!” Bofur protests. He’s standing on the bus’s steps; the rest of the band is pressed against the windows, staring out at the same view that’s captivated Thorin. Well, maybe not quite the whole view. “Come on, you two. Get back on the bus.”

They’re in Glacier National Park – Bilbo’s idea, after the shows in Missoula. They aren’t due in Boise for another three days; as Bilbo put it, “Why not do some sightseeing?”

“We don’t do sightseeing,” Dwalin said, scowling. Thorin is taller than Bilbo; Dwalin is much taller than Bilbo, and Bilbo is still slightly cowed by him. “I thought Thorin told you this wasn’t a road trip.”

Thorin couldn’t stand the way Bilbo’s shoulders slumped. “We’ve been over half the country, and we haven’t seen much other than the side of the road and the inside of every dive bar that would book us. I say we go.”

Bilbo looked at him, surprised. They made eye contact. Thorin, inexplicably, remembered the bedroom eyes comment from the Rolling Stone intern on Twitter and looked away. Luckily, Kili was already talking. “Will there be girls?”

Bilbo stopped looking at Thorin and started looking askance at Kili. “They don’t conduct a census,” he said.

“What’s a census?”

Fili shook his head. “Did you graduate high school, Kili? Or did they just give you the diploma so you would leave?”

“Well, at least I’m not the one who flunked P.E.,” Kili shot back. “How do you even flunk P.E.?”

“I flunked it,” Bilbo put in. Now Thorin was back to staring at him. “Too much running, not enough stretching.”

Balin cleared his throat. “Should we pull out everyone’s high school transcripts and go over them? Or shall we get on the road?”

“I suggest the road,” Gandalf said.

Bofur was already heading for the bus. “Let’s go, lads. And one of you needs to tell me where we’re going.”

So now they’re in the park. And because there aren’t grocery stores – or McDonalds, as Ori pointed out to a very distressed Kili – the bus is full of as much food as they could fit into it. Thorin shares his half of the front row with a ten-pound sack of potatoes and a cooler full of beer. He really hopes the others purchased things to drink beyond beer. Originally the supplies were in the aisle seat, with Thorin in the window seat. Then he realized that it was blocking his conversation with Bilbo as well as his view and shifted everything into the other seat. Oddly enough, he’s more comfortable around Bilbo now than he was before.

Thorin’s not sure why it’s shifted, why he’s gone from wanting to jump out of his skin and run away whenever he’s around Bilbo to actually drawing closer to him. Maybe he’s realized that flailing ineffectually at his feelings isn’t going to make them go away. Or maybe he’s just come to realize that Bilbo is really, truly, on his side – and that’s only made him like Bilbo more.

The campground Bofur guides the bus into is nearly deserted. It’s nearing the end of the tourist season, and Thorin has no doubt that the nights get very cold. More concerning to him than the cold are the number of bear canisters around the campsite. It will be difficult to detach Fili and Kili from their snacks.

Bilbo has also noticed the bear canisters. He nudges one with his foot. “What are these?”

“Bear hideouts,” Kili says seriously.

“B-b-bear hideouts?” Bilbo stammers.

“Yeah,” Fili adds, drawing up alongside Kili with a grim look on his face. “There will be dozens of them out there tonight. When you hear them coming, you jump in there and close the lid.”

Bilbo studies the bear canister nearest him with a skeptical look on his face. “This doesn’t look big enough for that. Thorin would never fit in one of these.”

Thorin’s heart seizes. Kili and Fili are feeding Bilbo a ridiculous story about bears, and Bilbo is thinking about whether or not Thorin will be safe. It’s as if his agent is trying to kill him where he stands. His nephews, however, are oblivious. “No bear would be dumb enough to go after Thorin,” Fili says proudly. He looks at Bilbo and his face falls. “You, on the other hand – you’d be a good snack.”

“Enough,” Thorin says, because Bilbo is starting to look nervous. He points at the canister. “This is where we put food so the bears won’t be attracted to the campsite. They’re not for people to hide in.”

He punctuates this last by glaring at Fili and Kili. Fili at least has the decency to look ashamed of it. Kili, on the other hand, doubles down. “You told me that when I was ten.”

“I told you that so you’d stop running away from your mother,” Thorin says. He remembers that trip. Kili was ten, Fili was eleven, and Thorin was nineteen, almost twenty. He was invited along mostly to help Dis wrangle her sons. “If you’d had your way you would have been eaten years ago. I imagine Bilbo has more sense.”

“I should hope so, since I’m an adult,” Bilbo says. He’s carrying an armful of food; he pries open the bear canister with one foot and places the food carefully inside. Thorin would have dropped it. Bilbo straightens back up and puts his hands in his pockets. “Shouldn’t we be unloading the rest of it?”

Fili and Kili stand there for a moment. “Shouldn’t we?” Thorin prompts, and the two of them scurry back to the bus.

Bilbo looks around at the campsite. They’re on the edge of a lake ringed by jagged mountains that rear up against the sky. The water’s surface is as clear as glass. “Did you know,” Bilbo says after a moment, “that the road we drove in on is called the Going-to-the-Sun road?”

“I didn’t,” Thorin says after a moment. He likes that it has a name, for some reason. “You know a lot of things I don’t.”

Bilbo makes a little huffing noise at that. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Thorin doesn’t think he’s being ridiculous at all. Bilbo knows a lot of things, and his knowledge always shows itself at odd moments. When Fili was puzzling over a song, over how to tie disparate parts together, Bilbo was the one who reshaped Fili’s lyrics into a coherent whole. Fili is a fairly scattered songwriter; even Thorin has trouble reining him in. But Bilbo handled it easily, and with a smile.

It’s not just music. Gloin’s phone broke a few days back, which was a disaster, because Gloin has a wife and a son who are anxious for updates about how the tour is progressing. Bilbo was somehow able to fix it, probably because he kept working on it past when Thorin would have given up and chucked it at the ground. The hard drive in Balin’s laptop melted, and Bilbo was able to discern the problem and find a computer technician to help transfer the files to a new laptop – paid for out of Rivendell Records’ discretionary fund. Whatever the problem, Bilbo has an answer.

While Thorin’s been lost in thought, Bilbo’s wandered off. Thorin wonders if he offended Bilbo, or simply made him uncomfortable. He can’t take it back either way, so he keeps looking at the lake for a little while longer. Thorin makes his way to the edge of the lake and peers down at his reflection in the water. He looks tired. And he looks old. He’s only twenty-nine, and there are already streaks of grey in his dark hair. Thorin nudges a rock into the water with his foot and watches as his reflection ripples, swims out of focus, becomes unrecognizable. It unnerves him more than it should. He steps back in a hurry.

Thorin closes his eyes, runs through the lyrics of every song in the last set in his head. Then he does the set the night before, and the set the night before that. His memory of them is as clear as day, and his heartbeat slows a little bit. He remembers. It’s not happening. He remembers. Thorin turns around and heads back to the campsite, doing his best to leave these dark thoughts behind. But the sight of his reflection shifting until it was no longer his sticks with him. Thorin has a very good memory.

The band hasn’t had a proper campout in ages. Not since the beginning of the tour, when they were hopeful and excited and unaware of just how far Smaug would go to enact petty vengeance upon them. But in spite of their growing social media following, in spite of the fact that their ticket prices and cover charges are rising, in spite of the fact that Bruce Springsteen retweeted their songs, Smaug has remained strangely silent. Thorin wonders what’s stopping him.

_Maybe it’s the trademark_. Thorin’s still chuckling to himself when he reaches the firepit and the circle of tents they’ve erected. But something’s not right about the tents. There are eight of them – one single-occupancy tent, and seven two-man tents. Thorin gestures at them as he approaches. “What is this?”

“It might drop into the twenties tonight,” Dwalin grunts. “The two-man tents are warmer, and they’ll stay warmer with two people each.”

Thorin absorbs this. “Who’s sharing?”

“Well, Gandalf drew the longest straw. He gets the single tent.”

“And the space heater,” Gandalf says.

“And the space heater,” Dwalin says through clenched teeth.

Gandalf has jammed a hot dog on a stick and is roasting it over the fire. Bilbo raises his eyebrows at this. “We have skewers, you know.”

Gandalf ignores him. “Then I think it’s Kili and Fili together, Balin and Dwalin, Nori and Ori, Oin and Gloin. Bifur and Bombur, Bofur and Dori…”

Thorin has a sudden premonition of doom. “And Thorin, you’ll be sharing with Bilbo,” Balin says cheerfully.

“How did you decide this?” Thorin asks. This is bad. This is very, very bad.

“We drew straws,” Bilbo says. He looks as uneasy with this turn of events as Thorin feels. “Longest straw got first pick, and I got the shortest one.”

Gandalf pokes at the hot dog, then sticks it back in the fire. “I got the space heater.”

“Yes! You get the space heater! We all know you get the space heater!” Dwalin explodes. “Enough already!”

“My dear Dwalin,” Gandalf says, “you need to relax. Perhaps Bilbo can teach you some breathing techniques. And yoga.”

“No! No yoga!”

Dwalin has to stand up and take a lap around the campfire to cool off. Thorin, meanwhile, is working his way through this turn of events. Bilbo may have drawn the shortest straw, but even if he hadn’t, none of the other bandmembers would have picked sharing with Thorin. They have their excuses, of course. Bofur says Thorin kicks in his sleep. According to Gloin, he grinds his teeth, and according to Balin, he talks. While all of those things are possible, Thorin thinks it’s more likely that all the other bandmembers know how much Thorin values his privacy.

But they only have one space heater, Gandalf drew the long straw, and Bilbo would have picked what was the only remaining option. Easy enough to explain.

“Thank you for arranging it,” Thorin says. “Whoever did that.”

“Me,” Balin says. Thorin nods in thanks.

“It’s going to be fine,” Kili says, “except for whichever one of us gets stuck with the midnight fart machine.”

The rest of the band begins to look very nervous. Thorin knows it’s not him, if only because he was the only one left awake one night when the stench began to permeate the bus. The next morning he suggested that they all begin sleeping outside. The rest of the band held out for one more night before giving up and resorting to the tents. The only comfort Thorin can find in the tent-sharing situation is that he knows it’s not Bilbo, either.

Bilbo doesn’t seem to think much of this. “What is the obsession with passing gas?”

He won’t even say the word. In fairness, Thorin tries to avoid saying it as well – it makes him feel like a third-grader. “It’s not an obsession,” Fili says. “It’s a survival mechanism.”

Gloin nods vigorously. “Trust me, if you smelled it, you would understand.”

Bilbo wrinkles his nose and gives his head a little shake, as if to clear both the thought and the imagined smell. It’s almost painfully cute. Thorin looks away before he can be caught staring.

They cook their food over the flames, then let the fire bank down to embers for dessert. Bombur is attempting to bake brownies inside a foil tin he’s constructed himself, but the rest of them content themselves with the ever-popular s’more. No one can seem to agree on how to properly cook a marshmallow. Thorin is picky about his – nothing more or less than golden brown. Dori, for some reason, prefers to eat them raw, while Kili and Fili are willing to take whatever they can get. Bilbo, on the other hand, burns his nearly black before eating them.

“That is disgusting,” Oin observes. “What does it taste like, charcoal?”

“When was the last time you ate charcoal? It’s good,” Bilbo says. “Try one and see.”

Thorin considers doing so, but at the moment he has an assembled s’more to deal with, and most of his attention is devoted to the best way to attack it. Finally he just aims for one of the corners. But nature is apparently out to screw him today, and the wind comes up just as he’s attempting to eat it. He gets some of the s’more; unfortunately he gets some of his own hair, too. Thorin manages to disentangle himself from it with most of his dignity intact.

Or at least that’s what he thinks, until Kili looks directly at him and says, “Uncle Thorin, you’ve got marshmallow in your hair. Like, a lot.”

Thorin swears, waits for the wind to die down, and stuffs the rest of the s’more in his mouth, where it can’t cause any more trouble. Then he devotes his attention to the several strands of hair that are coated in marshmallow. Scraping it off doesn’t work, and beyond that, Thorin’s not really sure what his options are other than putting it in his mouth, and he’s not about to be one of those people who chews on their own hair. He hears something whistle through the air; a moment later a water bottle bounces off his forehead. Thorin swears again.

“Catch,” Bilbo says belatedly.

Whatever the problem, Bilbo has an answer. Thorin starts fixing said problem, but the whole thing is beginning to frustrate him. “I should just cut it off,” he says to no one in particular. “It’s a mess.”

“No,” Bilbo says immediately, and everyone else turns to look at him. He looks defensive. “It’s part of your brand at this point. Half the thirst comments on our social media are about your hair. You can’t cut it.”

Thorin raises his eyebrows, and Bilbo amends the statement. “Well, I suppose you can,” he mutters, “but as your agent I’d advise against it.”

A flush is beginning to creep up from beneath Bilbo’s collar. Thorin’s eyes fasten on it, and try as he might, he can’t seem to tear them away. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for Thorin, Kili interposes himself into Thorin’s field of vision, leaning out from his seat on a log to look squarely at Bilbo. “Are we going to get makeovers? I’ve always wanted green hair.”

“What?” Bilbo says. He gives his head that little shake again. “I should think you’d be happy with your current look, given how much the girls seem to like it.”

“Oh,” Kili says. “Good point. Beer?”

“What?”

“Beer,” Kili says patiently. It’s a mark of how much Thorin’s nephew likes Bilbo that he hasn’t just thrown one at him. “Do you want one?”

“Er, all right.” Bilbo accepts the can and studies it for a moment before popping the tab, lifting it to his mouth, and draining the entire thing in one swallow.

Thorin stares at him. He’s not the only one doing so. Even Gandalf looks mildly impressed. Bilbo sets the can aside, clearly discomfited by the number of people staring at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Fili says, rapidly averting his eyes. “It’s just, we didn’t think you drank this kind of thing.”

“When I want to drink,” Bilbo says, “I drink whatever’s on offer.”

Dwalin nods. He’s also glaring at Balin, although his words are ostensibly aimed at Bilbo. “That’s what smart men do.”

“I’ve told you a thousand times, I don’t like it,” Balin says.

Bilbo looks at him quizzically. “Drinking beer or being drunk?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not,” Bilbo says after a moment. Then he extends a hand in Kili’s direction. “Kili, er, beer me.”

Kili grins. “With pleasure.”

The second can of beer goes the same way as the first, but that’s the last one Bilbo drinks for the rest of the night. His chugging of two beers in less than five minutes starts the rest of the band on their night’s drinking, although none of them seem to notice that Bilbo isn’t participating any longer. They’re used to Thorin, Balin, and Gandalf not getting involved. Thorin washes the rest of the marshmallow out of his hair, then devotes his attention to making sure the remaining food is stored in the bear canisters. Once the beer comes out, the band tends to lose interest in food, and Thorin doesn’t want any bears wandering into the campsite because someone left out a half-burned marshmallow on a stick.

Thorin finally runs out of chores to do and comes to a stop just outside the circle of light provided by the fire. Here they are, his band and his family. They’re disorganized, overenthusiastic, and occasionally very drunk, but they’re his. The lot of them, Bilbo and Gandalf included, could have gone anywhere – there’s not a band in the world that wouldn’t be lucky to have them. But they’re here instead, with Thorin, drinking cheap beer around a fire in the middle of nowhere. And none of them look as though they wish they were anywhere else.

Thorin doesn’t, either. For once, he’s not wishing for a bigger venue or a different town or a different world – not even for a different life. For this moment, far away from everything else, Thorin is exactly where he wants to be.

The band starts peeling off in ones and twos, heading to their tents. Thorin hears zipper after zipper going up as they close themselves in, trying to keep the heat from escaping. While Gandalf tends to the remains of the fire, Thorin takes it on himself to move the stragglers in the right direction. There are a lot of stragglers.

“No, this way, Dwalin,” Thorin says through gritted teeth. Dwalin is the only bandmember taller than Thorin is, and he’s much heavier – and at the moment, he’s basically dead weight. “That way’s the lake.”

Dwalin stops being dead weight and starts being a problem. “I want to go in the lake.”

“No, you don’t. It’s cold in there.” Thorin looks around for Balin, but Balin and Bofur are working together to haul Bombur to his feet and get him moving in the right direction. Thorin plants his feet and yanks, checking Dwalin’s stumbling forward progress. “If you go in the lake and drown, Balin and I are putting ‘I told you so’ on your tombstone. And I’ll let Fili and Kili have your bass.”

“Nobody touches my bass,” Dwalin growls. Thorin sighs.

He manages to haul Dwalin into his appointed tent; then he zips up the tent on him, hoping that Dwalin will be too tired to jailbreak himself in a quest to reach the lake. Balin and Bofur have managed to haul Bombur upright, and Balin is now making his way over to the tent where Thorin just imprisoned Dwalin.

“Right,” Balin says. He rubs his hands together to keep them warm. “How is he?”

“Angry, as usual,” Thorin says. Balin nods at this. “Are we missing anyone?”

“No, I think we got everybody.”

Thorin is distracted by a motion over Balin’s shoulder. It’s Bilbo, who seems to have caught up with the rest of the band in the pointing and flailing department. “There’s one more,” he says. “You go to bed, Balin. I’ve got it.”

He makes his way over to the remains of the fire. Gandalf has gone to the lake for water to douse the last of the flames. Bilbo is standing by one of the logs. Someone’s stretched out on it. “Kili?”

Kili yawns. “I weigh less than a slice of bread.”

This makes no sense to Thorin. He looks at Bilbo, who shrugs. “I’ve been trying to get him to move for five minutes. He won’t budge.”

“This is my house,” Kili says. He wriggles around on the log, attempting to get comfortable. “I live here now. Go away.”

Bilbo looks from Thorin to Kili and back. Thorin is briefly entertained by the thought that he’s encountered a problem Bilbo can’t solve – or at least, can’t solve without an air horn and a cattle prod. But Thorin knows Kili, and he knows how to make him move, even when he doesn’t want to. Thorin pushes the log with his foot, sending it rolling to one side. Kili rolls off of it. “Hey! My house!”

“This campground is the bears’ house,” Thorin says ominously. Kili sits upright in a hurry. “They live here. Do you really want to be out and about when they come home?”

“The bears ate Goldilocks,” Kili says, apropos of nothing. He looks to Bilbo for confirmation of this. “Right?”

Bilbo nods. “I believe they did,” he says, his face grave. He’s caught on to Thorin’s plan fast. “You’ll be safer in your tent.”

Kili’s been moving under his own power thus far; when Thorin goes to help him up, he goes floppy and boneless like a ragdoll, unable to get his feet under him. Thorin is going to have a talk with Kili later about not making an idiot of himself while drinking. Luckily, Bilbo gets on Kili’s other side and helps Thorin hoist his nephew to his feet; then they drag him off to his tent and heave him inside on top of Fili.

Fili is significantly less drunk than his brother. “Hey! What was that for?”

“I was in the bears’ house,” Kili says. “’Night.”

“Good night,” Bilbo says, and he zips the tent flap back up in a hurry, before Kili can make another attempt to escape. Now it’s Thorin and Bilbo alone in the campground. The fire is dead, and Gandalf’s already disappeared into his own tent. Thorin can hear the space heater powering up. Bilbo shifts from foot to foot. “Our tent is the one on the end.”

Thorin almost forgot about that. Now it all comes rushing back. “Our tent,” he says, hating how he feels when he says it. “Right.”

Thorin’s backpack is already inside, and his sleeping bag and mat have been laid out on the left side of the tent. Bilbo’s things are similarly arrayed on the right side. Both sleeping bags are facing the same way. If Thorin lies on his side or turns his head, he’ll be looking straight at Bilbo, and there’s not enough space in the tent for Thorin, Bilbo, and Thorin’s feelings. This is not good. He stops in the act of entering the tent, and Bilbo bumps into him. “I’m not sure how you usually set it up,” he says. “I hope it’s all right.”

It would be, if Thorin weren’t attempting to minimize his opportunities to get in trouble. He grabs the end of his sleeping bag and drags it around until it’s facing the other way. It’s not a perfect solution by any means, but at least this way he won’t wind up gazing longingly at Bilbo’s face every time he turns his head. “It’s fine.”

As soon as Thorin solves that problem, another one presents itself. He’s fully dressed. He doesn’t sleep fully dressed. He’s betting Bilbo doesn’t, either. And after all the bear talk, he doesn’t think either of them are interested in going back outside.

_Oh, grow up. It won’t be weird if you don’t _make it_ weird_. Thorin divests himself of shoes, belt, and shirt before diving headfirst into his sleeping bag. There’s some rustling around and muttering from Bilbo’s side of the tent. He deliberately doesn’t look, but he hears enough to have some idea what’s going on.

“Shoes, backpack, phone – phone? Oh no. Oh no, where is it – I couldn’t have left it out –all right. Here it is.” More rustling. “And – done.”

Thorin risks a glance at his temporary tent-mate. Bilbo is standing up, his back to Thorin, plugging his phone into his portable charger. Unlike Thorin, who sleeps in about half his street clothes when they’re camping out, Bilbo has undergone a complete wardrobe change. He’s wearing pajamas. Plaid flannel pajamas. Thorin takes a moment to wonder why the universe is committed to torturing him; then Bilbo turns around and Thorin averts his eyes in a hurry.

“Should I – er – should I turn off the light?” Bilbo asks. He sounds as uncomfortable with the situation as Thorin is, albeit for an entirely different reason.

Thorin looks back at him, which turns out to be a mistake, because the pajama shirt buttons up and all Thorin can think about is how easy it would be to unbutton it. “Go ahead,” he snarls, harsher than he means to be, and Bilbo, looking alarmed, turns off the camping lantern lighting the tent.

Darkness is easier, if only because Thorin doesn’t have to look at him. He hears Bilbo rustling around, trying to get comfortable. For his part, Thorin’s given up on comfort when it comes to sleeping on the ground; the trick is to fall asleep as fast as possible and not think about it. Thorin has come to realize that he solves a lot of his problems by not thinking about them – although he’s not sure it counts as solving that way. Still, as he lies there, he thinks about that alarmed look on Bilbo’s face in the second before the lights went out. Thorin can’t leave it like that.

“Sorry,” he says into the darkness.

Bilbo’s voice comes back a second later. “About what?”

Thorin’s behavior. Thorin himself. The fact that Thorin is so utterly attracted to Bilbo that he defaults into sharpness and frustration when they get too close. There are a lot of options. “Kili,” Thorin says. Thorin is a coward. “He won’t shut up about girls. He’s obsessed. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. He needs reminding that we’re not on tour to get him a girlfriend.”

“You know, given how enthusiastic he is about everything else, I think the girl talk is normal enough,” Bilbo says after a while. “Girls? Yes. Beer? Yes. Laundry? Yes. Getting stale food out of a vending machine? Yes. Music? Yes. Fighting with a booking agent? Extra yes.”

Thorin winces. “You heard about that.”

“Balin told me,” Bilbo says. For a moment Thorin thinks he’s going to say more, but when he speaks again it’s a return to the original point. “Anyway, the girl thing only seems odd until you realize that he gets that excited about everything.”

Something occurs to Thorin. “You didn’t major in psychology, did you?”

Bilbo lets out a surprised little laugh. It occurs to Thorin that he’s never heard Bilbo laugh before. The laughing isn’t quite as bad for Thorin’s rules as the pajama shirt is, but it’s close. “No,” he says. “Double major in Business Marketing and English, and I minored in music.”

“That’s an interesting combination,” Thorin says after a moment.

“My theory and critique professor used to say that ‘interesting’ is a stand-in for bad,” Bilbo says.

Open mouth, insert foot. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” Bilbo says. Thorin imagines Bilbo smiling somewhere in the dark, and he kicks himself for having reversed his own sleeping arrangements, rules be damned. “My mother always said there was no point in going to college just to study something you hate. What did you do?”

Thorin doesn’t want to talk about college. “Not that,” he says.

Quiet again. Thorin tries to make himself sleep, tries to even out his breathing. It’s working somewhat when Bilbo says, “You know, I don’t even have any idea where you’re from.”

Thorin is trying to remember if he’s ever had a conversation with Bilbo about anything that wasn’t somehow related to the band. “Colorado,” he says after a moment. “Vail, in the front range, but I live in Denver now.”

Thorin’s mailing address is in Denver. In practice, he pretty much lives on the bus. When Bilbo speaks, it’s in the tone of someone who’s just had an epiphany. “Colorado,” he says. “That’s why so many of your covers are from John Denver. Did you know you play Country Roads in every single set?”

“I know,” Thorin says. Then, before he can stop himself, “It’s one of the rules.”

He imagines Bilbo’s eyebrows lifting. “The rules. The rules for what?”

“Set lists,” Thorin says, wishing he’d told Bilbo that he sprung out of a hole in the ground when Bilbo asked where he was from. “Even people who don’t know anything about country music know Country Roads. There are always at least a few people in the audience who got dragged there against their will – I try to throw them a bone.”

“You think a lot about the audience,” Bilbo observes.

Thorin can’t wrap his head around that one. “Shouldn’t I?”

“Usually artists who think that much about the audience get stage fright something awful,” Bilbo says. “When I found that venue last-minute, you didn’t even flinch.”

Thorin wonders what Bilbo would think if he knew Thorin was experiencing the worst stage fright of his life right before the performance that got The Lonely Mountains signed. Bilbo clearly already thinks he’s odd, and Thorin would ordinarily drop it, but he’ll be kicking himself all night if he doesn’t say something. “I think about the audience until I’m onstage. Then I stop.”

Thorin keeps his eyes moving during shows. He thinks it helps with audience engagement, and some part of his mind that’s not performing is keeping track of how they’re reacting, but it doesn’t hit him in the same way it does when he’s watching someone else’s show. It’s just information to be sorted through later and analyzed, something to think about before the next show – right up until the next moment he steps into the light.

“Can you perform without them?”

“Without who? The band?” Thorin is horrified by the thought. “You’d better not be –”

“Thorin, you and the band belong together,” Bilbo says. “I meant the audience.”

“You’ve seen us practice.”

“Yes,” Bilbo says patiently, “but I’ve never heard you perform without a crowd.”

Thorin tries to think over situations where they’d be performing without a crowd. A recording studio, perhaps – Bilbo’s mentioned that a couple times. Or a music video, but Thorin thinks they’re a long way from that point. “Does this line of questioning have anything to do with what we’re doing tomorrow?”

There’s a lengthy silence after that. Thorin would give quite a bit to see the look on Bilbo's face at the moment. “No,” Bilbo says unconvincingly.

“All right,” Thorin says, amused. “I won’t ask any more.”

“Good. Don’t.” Bilbo says. Then, muttering to himself: “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“For who?” Thorin asks without thinking about it.

“You,” Bilbo says. A pause. “The Lonely Mountains. Obviously. Who did you think it was for, the bus?”

It’s funny, and Thorin makes himself laugh, but his mind’s stuck on Bilbo’s first answer. And the pause between that answer and the next. A surprise for the band? Or for Thorin?

Bilbo mutters to himself again, rustles around in his sleeping bag a little more, then falls silent. A few minutes later, Thorin hears his breathing even out into sleep. Meanwhile, Thorin’s face is hot in spite of the cold, and no matter how much he tosses and turns he can’t seem to get settled. The fact that Bilbo makes these soft sighing sounds in his sleep every so often doesn’t help in the slightest. Thorin pinches the bridge of his nose and wishes for something, anything, to take his mind off of things.

A few minutes later he hears slow, heavy footfalls outside the tent.

Thorin sits up in a hurry. Whatever it is, he can hear it shuffling around in the undergrowth and grunting every so often. That’s not good. Thorin doesn’t have a gun, or a knife. He doesn’t even have pepper spray. And that would probably be fine, if more than nylon and a zipper were standing between he and Bilbo and what sounds very much like a bear. Thorin reaches for his belt and uncoils it as quietly as he can. Maybe if he hits the bear across the nose with the buckle, it will be less inclined to eat Bilbo after it’s done with him.

Then Thorin hears someone snicker. Said individual is immediately shushed by someone else, but by that point, Thorin knows exactly what’s going on. He slaps the side of the tent lightly. “Fili, Kili, go to bed.”

There’s a heavy thud. Thorin glances at Bilbo, hoping he won’t wake up to find Thorin ready to ineffectually defend them both against what’s turned out to be Thorin’s idiot nephews. It seems Bilbo’s out for the night. Thank Durin for that. There’s another thud. If Thorin had to guess, he’d say that Kili was on Fili’s shoulders, and now they’re both on the ground. They’re still snickering.

“I mean it,” Thorin hisses. “Go to bed or I’m going to come out there and give you something real to be scared of.”

He imagines his nephews exchanging a glance. “We were just having a bit of fun.”

Thorin hopes they weren’t actually planning to come into the tent. He imagines having to explain to his sister why he broke one or both of her sons’ noses, and frustration with the two of them bubbles up within him. “Yes, it’s all fun and games until someone gets eaten. Get out of here, because if a real bear comes along, it’s going to eat you first.”

“We didn’t mean anything by it,” Kili mumbles.

“You never do,” Thorin says. “Go.”

Thorin hears their footsteps recede, but the not quite near-death experience doesn’t improve his sleeplessness. He coils his belt again and sets it aside. He lays back down. An odd parallel occurs to him. In his plans for dealing with the supposed bear attack, Thorin was more concerned about protecting Bilbo than himself. But when Kili and Fili were attempting to scare Bilbo about the supposed bear hideouts, Bilbo was concerned about whether or not Thorin would fit in them. Maybe Bilbo was using Thorin as a general example of people bigger than him. Thorin could see that. But maybe – and Thorin knows it’s the stupid part of himself talking, the part that wants Bilbo more than it wants to keep to his rules – maybe Bilbo was as worried about what might happen to Thorin as Thorin was about what might happen to Bilbo.

Thorin rolls onto his side and tries to clear his mind. It’s not easy, not when so much has happened today. Being in the mountains again. The surprise - _For who? You_. The buttons on Bilbo’s thrice-damned matching pajama set. Warm thoughts, exciting thoughts. Not like the thought that stays with him when all the others are gone. The thought of his reflection warping in the water, distorted beyond recognition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who bookmarked or left kudos, and a special thank you to everyone who's commented - LostGryphin, Eldikar_The_Magnificent, The_Snow_Ninja, and ActuallyAtWork.
> 
> In answer to ActuallyAtWork's question, the song lyrics were written specifically for the story and are regrettably not attached to actual songs. However, Thorin will not be the only character whose song lyrics appear in the story. If y'all leave questions in the comments, I'll answer in the notes on the next chapter. 
> 
> Updates will be roughly every five days.


	6. Chapter 6

“Are we there yet?”

Thorin looks down the trail at Ori. “How long ago did you last ask me that question?”

“Uh,” Ori says. “Five minutes?”

“It was three,” Bilbo says from the front of the group. Bilbo is leading; Thorin is in the middle, keeping up morale; Gandalf is in the back, rounding up stragglers. There are a lot of stragglers. Bilbo makes a face at Thorin that Thorin thinks is supposed to indicate sympathy and turns back around, picking his way further up the trail.

“Three minutes,” Thorin says to Ori. “Do you really think we’ve made meaningful progress in three minutes?”

“Go easy on him, Thorin,” Balin advises. “He drank a lot last night.”

“So did I,” Dwalin says, “and you don’t hear me bitching. Not to mention, my instrument is heaviest.”

“No,” Thorin says. He’s been down this road before, and he knows the signs when he sees – or hears – them. “No instrument talk!”

It’s too late. “I think,” Balin says mildly, “that my instrument is the biggest. If we’re comparing.”

Dwalin scowls. “Maybe so, but you aren’t carrying it.”

“Of course not. No one is going to schlep a piano to the top of a mountain,” Balin says. “But we were comparing instruments. And mine’s the biggest.”

“Well, mine makes the most noise,” Kili says, grinning. “By far.”

Thorin glances back at Gandalf for help. Gandalf shrugs. Meanwhile, Bofur has waded into the conversation. “My instrument,” he says, with a worldly air, “is the most versatile. There’s nothing my instrument can’t do.”

“Except play two notes at once,” Thorin mutters, but no one’s listening to him.

“Oi, Balin, my instrument’s bigger than yours,” Nori says. Thorin looks askance at both of them – there’s no world in which an upright bass is larger than a piano. “And I can carry it by myself.”

“Are you carrying it now? No?” Balin looks back at Nori, who’s making a face and holding a violin tucked under one arm. “Then this is not a conversation for you to participate in. Would anyone else like to challenge me?”

“My instrument’s more fun than yours,” Fili says, ever cheerful. “It’s whimsical.”

“Why would you want your instrument to be whimsical?” Kili says. “That’s not the point of instruments.”

Fili defends himself. “Why can’t it be the point of instruments? They’re supposed to be fun!”

Thorin walks faster, passing up Gloin, Oin, and Bifur. He draws up alongside Bilbo, who’s leading the way. Thorin’s guitar, strapped to his back, keeps hitting him in the back of the head – and when it’s not hitting him in the back of the head, his hair is snagging everywhere on it. Bilbo doesn’t have a musical instrument. Instead he has his backpack and a walking stick he picked up along the way.

Now he looks up at Thorin. “Are they talking about what I think they are back there?”

“Unfortunately,” Thorin says. “This happens every so often. They get tired of it eventually.”

The argument is reaching fever pitch. Gloin is gesticulating wildly at his older brother. “I’m telling you, Oin, a sharp instrument is not a good thing! Neither is a dangerous one!”

“Well, at least my instrument doesn’t _shrink_!”

Thorin walks faster, but not so fast as to leave Bilbo behind. The trail Bilbo’s chosen for them is four miles round-trip, and labeled as ‘moderate’ in the brochure Bofur picked up at the park entrance, although as Thorin is beginning to find out, moderate is a relative measure. Gandalf seems to have no trouble with the hike, but some of the others are struggling. However, Bombur, who Thorin was worried about as soon as he saw the elevation gain on the trail, is doing fine. The others are all somewhere in the middle.

Bilbo doesn’t seem to struggle with it in the slightest, even though he’s having to take two steps to every one of Thorin’s. “We’ve already gotten through the worst bit,” he says optimistically. “Besides, we might not have to go all the way up.”

“I thought that was the point of hiking,” Thorin says.

Bilbo produces an enigmatic smile. “Sometimes,” he says. “Maybe not today. Did everybody bring their – ah, the things they – no, not play with – the musical things that make sounds?”

Bilbo’s consternation is this close to killing Thorin. “They did,” he says, trying not to laugh. “We have more harmonicas than usual, and Nori has a violin instead of a bass, but it should work.”

“What did Kili bring?”

“Tambourine,” Thorin says, and Bilbo chuckles to himself.

“Anyway,” Fili says loudly from behind them, drowning out the rest of the arguing, “it’s not so much the attributes of the instrument as it is how you use it. Isn’t that right, Uncle?”

There’s a cliff nearby. Thorin briefly entertains the thought of tossing himself over it.

Thorin woke up much later than Bilbo did. When he opened his eyes, the right side of the tent was unoccupied, the sleeping bag and mat already rolled up tight. Thorin heard voices outside the tent. He identified one as Bilbo, and the other two as Fili and Kili, and lay back down, pretending to be asleep.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bilbo was saying.

“Come on, you should be on our side,” Kili said. “You had to share a tent with him.”

“I did,” Bilbo said, “and I don’t know what you all were going on about. He doesn’t snore. Or kick in his sleep. Or drool. Or – all of those other things you were saying.”

“Really?” Kili said. “Huh. I always thought –”

“See, Uncle Thorin doesn’t really like people,” Fili said, cutting off his younger brother. “We met his last girlfriend eight times before we figured out they were dating.”

“Girlfriend,” Bilbo repeated, and try as he might, Thorin couldn’t decipher that tone of voice.

“It was even worse with the last boyfriend,” Kili added. “We thought they were just really good friends for a whole year until we saw him kiss Thorin goodnight.”

Thorin sort of knew that his nephews were spying on him, but it was odd to hear it confirmed – and especially odd to hear how normal they found it. His grandfather’s response to the same knowledge made it seem like some sort of cosmic-level controversy. Fili kept talking, and Thorin made himself listen. “The point is, Thorin hates people, and he likes his personal space.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Kili said. There was a sound like someone being clapped on the shoulder, and a muttered “ouch” from Bilbo. “Did he sit up all night glaring daggers at you?”

“Er, no.” Bilbo’s response to this was fast and certain, and Thorin started wondering if Bilbo had really fallen asleep as quickly as he seemed to.

“Then you’re fine,” Fili says. “Now be a dear and step aside so we can toss this bucket of water on him.”

Bilbo attempted to dissuade them, and while he was doing that, Thorin unzipped one of the windows and made his escape. Then he snuck around behind his nephews, ascertained which one of them was holding the bucket, and tapped the other on the shoulder. Kili screeched, and Fili promptly drenched him with the bucket of water. Bilbo was laughing, at first – then he looked at Thorin, made an indiscriminate sound, and scurried away at high speed. Thorin looked down at himself. Barefoot. And shirtless.

It’s late morning now, and Thorin has his guitar – and more importantly, all his clothes. He turns around and makes eye contact with Fili, calling to mind Fili’s statement about instruments and their attributes. “I never said that,” he says, and turns away with a spring in his step as the instrument discussion collapses again.

Thorin’s got a decent idea of what Bilbo is planning at this point. The others think they’re being dragged along on a hike as some sort of conditioning plan to build their stamina for longer shows. Thorin was stunned to hear this excuse from Bilbo and even more stunned that the rest of the group bought it. Thorin thinks it’s got less to do with stamina and more to do with Bilbo’s convoluted and gradually unfolding social media strategy. He wants the band in a pretty location, with their instruments, for – what? Photo shoot is the obvious answer, but Thorin is remembering what Bilbo said last night, about whether the band could play without an audience. Does he want them to play somewhere up here? Why?

In spite of Bilbo’s hopes to the contrary, they do end up having to hike the entire trail. Thorin is impressed with the payoff, though – it’s an incredible view. And they’re alone up there. They passed no one on the trail, and no one came up behind them. Bilbo gestures at an open space – grass, scattered here and there with rocks. “All of you except Gandalf, go sit over there.”

“Should we take out our instruments?” Kili asks.

Bilbo cringes. So does Thorin, but he doesn’t let it show on his face. “No,” he says. “Just sit down, for the moment.”

Thorin and Dwalin are the tallest in the group. They sit at the back. Bilbo, for his part, climbs up onto a rock that puts the top of his head on a level with the brim of Gandalf’s hat. He’s shifting his weight back and forth, onto his heels and off. “So,” he says, “I imagine some of you are wondering what’s going on.”

Some nodding from the group. Bilbo looks around at everyone, confirming, and continues. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to distinguish you from other up-and-coming bands,” he says. “When we can, I want us to go to national parks. I want you to find a pretty place to sit and sing a song. I don’t care what song – cover, original, whichever you think of. Whatever being here makes you think of.”

Kili raises his hand. Bilbo raises his eyebrows. “Yes, Kili. What is it?”

“Why are we singing?”

“I’m going to film it,” Bilbo says, “and then I’m going to put it on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube, with the goal of getting it in front of as many eyes as possible. Gandalf will be helping me film. Any questions?”

This time Bofur puts his hand up. “Why are we going to sing in national parks?”

Bilbo folds his hands behind his back. “I want to tie you, individually and as a band, to powerful imagery. When people see that imagery, I want them to think of you first. But it has to fit. If it’s the wrong imagery it will put them off.”

Thorin raises his hand. After the other two have done it, it feels wrong not to. Bilbo nods at him, and Thorin asks, “Why here?”

“Why these images specifically?” When Thorin nods, Bilbo elaborates. “The emotions you evoke in your music are fairly complex. They can be arresting and rugged, but they’re also beautiful, and wild. Places like this are what I think of when I think of those things.”

Thorin doesn’t say anything. This seems to make Bilbo nervous. “So? What do you all think?”

Silence for a moment. To Thorin’s shock, it’s Dwalin who speaks. “I like it,” he says gruffly. “I’m in.”

“Me, too!” Kili says excitedly. “Can I take my shirt off?”

Bilbo looks taken aback. “Can you – what?”

“Hey, if he’s taking his shirt off, I want to,” Fili says.

“Me, too,” Ori adds. “Maybe we should all take our shirts off!”

Bilbo’s eyes widen. Thorin remembers Bilbo practically fleeing from him earlier in the day. “No one’s taking their shirts off,” Thorin says, and the three youngest bandmembers drop into a temporary sulk. “Let’s tune up, and talk over what we’re going to play.”

Tuning up happens quickly. Deciding what to sing is a much longer process. Bilbo provides only one piece of input at the outset. “No John Denver. We’re in Montana.”

“He has a song about Montana, too,” Thorin points out. Bilbo makes a face, but lets it slide. Thorin must have it bad – he doesn’t usually find people attractive when they’re irritated at him. “All right. No John Denver.”

Dwalin is angling for a classic. “Johnny Cash. It’s the only choice.”

“We are not playing Ghost Riders in the Sky up here,” Dori says. “It’s bad luck.”

Oin gives him a pitying look. “The ghost riders aren’t real, you idiot.”

“I’m vetoing that one,” Bilbo says. “You’re meant to look majestic, not scary.”

Majestic is not a word Thorin has ever heard applied to himself or the band. Thorin wonders if Bilbo finds them majestic – or if Bilbo finds him specifically to be majestic, if he’s is being honest. Fili chimes in with a suggestion Thorin suspects came from his younger brother. “We should do a love song. We don’t do a lot of love songs.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Bilbo says. “Why not?”

“They’re dumb,” Bofur says. “Rascal Flatts does them.”

Bilbo’s eyebrows lift at this, and Thorin remembers that the last surfacing of Bofur’s Rascal Flatts vendetta was the night of the Minnesota show, before Bilbo knew them. “Then I think it’s a good idea,” Bilbo says. “What love songs do you have?”

Gloin raises his hand. “Does it have to be a nice love song?”

Bilbo blinks. “What do you mean, a nice love song?”

“Well,” Balin says after a moment, “we have an arrangement of Jolene from a year or so back, but –”

“But what?” Bilbo seizes on this.

But Thorin chickened out on singing a love song about a man. Balin doesn’t give Thorin away, not even with a glance. “It just never came together.”

“Too bad,” Gandalf says mildly. “I liked that one.”

Thorin liked that one, too. Until he thought about singing it in front of people who weren’t his band or Gandalf. Bilbo is looking at Thorin, and Thorin suddenly has the sense that Bilbo can see right into his head, can see the cowardice there. But Bilbo says nothing. He keeps looking, gaze steady. Recklessness washes over Thorin. After all, it’s not like the music industry doesn’t already know about him. Smaug saw to that when he leaked the details of one of Thorin’s past relationships to every news outlet that would take them. The information is still out there; anyone who wants to can find it. Does it really matter if Thorin’s singing about a man or a woman?

He clears his throat. “We’ll need a few practice runs, but let’s do it.”

Gandalf nods, smiling ever so slightly. “Good, good. I doubt you’ll regret it.”

A few practice runs later and they’re ready to record. Or almost ready. The wind is picking up, and although Bilbo says he wants the ambient noise, Thorin would prefer for it to die down a little bit first, so he doesn’t wind up eating his own hair mid-song. He would also prefer to have a little more time to work up his courage. Why on earth is he embarrassed to sing this song in front of the band? All of them know. Most of them met his previous boyfriends and girlfriends. Nobody here is going to care.

Fili is sitting next to him, giving his banjo a retuning it doesn’t need. He speaks to Thorin in a low voice. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Thorin says. He hopes the lie sounds convincing.

“Uncle Thorin,” Fili says, “when we were in West Virginia you took this song off the setlist last-minute. You never change your set lists once they’re taped down.”

Thorin’s guitar, already tuned, sits across his lap. He starts braiding a few pieces of hair back on either side, mostly to give himself something to do with his hands. “It wasn’t ready yet.”

“And it’s going to be ready now, when we just practiced it for the first time in over a year?” Fili shakes his head. “I know you’re worried, but anyone who comes for you has to go through us. All of us, Gandalf and Bilbo too. We have your back.”

Thorin, to his horror, finds himself getting a little choked up. He finishes the last braid – one on the right side, two on the left – and pinches the bridge of his nose to distract himself. “I know,” he says. “You know, you don’t have to sing on this one if you don’t want to.”

He wrote the song originally for two-part harmony, but he understands if Fili, who’s straighter than straight, doesn’t want in on it. Thorin can do it solo if he has to. But Fili is shaking his head. “No, I love this one. I want to sing on it. Unless you don’t want me to?”

“No, I’ll be grateful for it,” Thorin says, and it strikes him all at once how grateful he is for both his nephews. Thror wasn’t exactly shy of sharing his opinions on what he called Thorin’s “life choices”, and they grew up listening to him pick at Thorin over every family dinner. Kili was twelve, and Thorin twenty-one, the first time he turned to Thror at the dinner table and told him to shut the fuck up. “I’m glad you and Kili are here.”

Fili looks at him blankly. “Where else would we be?”

The wind comes down, and suddenly it’s a scramble for the band to get in position, for Bilbo and Gandalf to get their cameras set up. Bilbo is filming the wide shot, the one with everyone in it, while Gand plans to capture close-ups to splice into the clip. Thorin starts the song, keeping time with his foot until Fili and Kili come in together on the second repetition of the chorus. And then the song’s off and running, and Thorin couldn’t put the brakes on it even if he wanted to.

Thorin can’t believe he’s forgotten how much he likes this song. In fact, Balin suggested arranging it for the band after he heard Thorin singing it in the shower. Dwalin lays down a steady beat on bass for the second verse, which allows for syncopation on Kili’s part, and a sort of call and response for Bofur on his flute. The accordions are understated – or at least, as understated as it’s possible for accordions to be. All of the harmonicas have figured out how to slide their notes, working as second fiddle to Bifur’s and Nori’s violins. Fili showboats a bit on the banjo, but Thorin figures he’s entitled.

And besides, Thorin is showboating, too. The wind has picked up, but from the opposite direction, and it’s lifting his hair off his shoulders. He tries not to think about how stupid he looks on video, and he lets his voice roughen and rasp on a few of the notes. Balin, who’s accompanying Kili’s tambourine on finger cymbals, catches Thorin’s eye and smiles. Thorin checks the cameras, first Gandalf, then Bilbo, although in the latter case it’s not the camera he’s making eye contact with.

They bring the song to a crescendo and then pare it back gradually, cutting out the tambourine, the harmonicas, and the flute, until it’s just Fili and Thorin picking out the last few notes in an offset cascade of sound. Thorin makes eye contact one last time with Bilbo; then he bows his head.

Bilbo cuts the video, and a moment later, so does Gandalf. The next thing Thorin’s aware of is Fili applying an elbow to his side. Thorin looks at Fili. His nephew is beaming. “That,” he says, “was awesome.”

“We’ll see,” Thorin says. He glances again at Bilbo. Bilbo is smiling, too. Thorin addresses him, because that’s the only way he can explain how long his eyes linger. “Do we need to do it again?”

“What? Oh – no,” Bilbo says. “I’m fairly certain that we got it in one take.”

“Are you sure?” Thorin says. Anything to keep looking.

“I’m sure,” Gandalf puts in, because Bilbo is starting to look flustered and that makes Thorin want to look away even less. “Well done, everyone. Let’s pack up.”

“Oh, I think we can stay a little while longer,” Bilbo says, fussing with his phone, and then with the strap of his backpack. “If any of you are so inclined, I would advise taking selfies of some sort to post on your personal social media accounts. It would also be helpful if you’d hint at the release of the video.”

“You’re in luck, then,” Kili says. “I’m great at selfies.”

Balin seems to restrict himself mostly to scenery shots, occasionally featuring other members of the band. Kili’s mode of operation is taking photos of himself making various silly faces, interspersed with a few of himself presenting what he calls his “lady-killer face”. Dwalin, on the other hand, moves around the overlook, posing his bass in various places and snapping photos. Thorin watches this last, bemused. His own guitar sits in his lap. He can’t imagine posing it.

“You don’t have social media,” Bilbo says in his ear, and Thorin jumps. This time, he somehow manages to avoid head-butting Bilbo in the face. “Why not?”

_I don’t want it_ is Thorin’s usual answer. When he opens his mouth it’s the truth that comes out. “I deleted it all three years ago. I’m not putting it back.”

“Why not?” Bilbo asks again.

Thorin twists around to look at him. “I don’t want to,” he says. This, at least, is true.

Bilbo frowns. “Thorin, you’re the lead singer. You’re the face of the group. It’s for the band.”

Ordinarily, this argument works on Thorin. Not this time. “There’s nothing you can say that will convince me to make new accounts,” Thorin says. “If your social media plans involve me, you’ll have to change them.”

“All right,” Bilbo says after a moment. He seems surprised, and Thorin thinks he knows why; this is the first of his suggestions that Thorin’s flatly refused to take. When Bilbo speaks again, it’s to change the subject. “The song went well. I know it wasn’t easy for you to do that.”

“It was easier than I expected,” Thorin says after a moment. “Once it got going, that is.”

Bilbo sits down next to Thorin on his rock. “Is there any connection between your reluctance to sing that song and your refusal to go back on social media?”

Bilbo is, among other things, alarmingly perceptive. Thorin closes his eyes for a moment, trying to think of what to say and half thinking that he shouldn’t say anything at all. It’s a good moment, this one. He shouldn’t ruin it by bringing up the past. And yet, Thorin finds that he wants to tell Bilbo. He sets his guitar down and leans back on his hands. He tries to think about where to start.

“My last girlfriend,” Thorin starts, and he thinks he sees Bilbo’s shoulders stiffen, “didn’t want to talk about our exes. At all. Ever. She said it invited bad energy into the relationship.”

“That’s weird,” Bilbo says after a moment.

It’s extremely weird. In fact, it should have served as a red flag all on its own, but Thorin was half in love by that point and it was too late for red flags. “It’s going to become relevant in a second,” Thorin says. He flattens his palms against the rough surface of the rock. “I kept my social media profiles private. We all did – the family, I mean – so the press couldn’t get into our personal lives. My girlfriend didn’t worry about it. And my, uh, problem –”

“You mean your sexual orientation?” Bilbo’s voice is sharp. “That’s not a problem, Thorin.”

Thorin can’t look at him. Not right now. “It was pretty much a secret outside of my family. But she knew I was bisexual – and she didn’t know, if you know what I mean. Not what it meant. I was sentimental, and I kept pictures of me with my old boyfriends. All three of them.”

“Oh,” Bilbo says. “I see.”

Thorin thinks he probably does, and he’s intensely grateful that Bilbo doesn’t ask more questions. “My grandfather told Smaug about it. Smaug got the password and leaked the photos. Things went downhill from there.”

Thorin thinks about the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he saw his own stupid, smiling face splashed across C-list celebrity gossip blogs at first before being picked up by the better ones, if there can be said to be better ones. He remembers the flood of messages he got from strangers, and how he made himself read through dozens of them before he finally deleted his accounts. He remembers his girlfriend demanding to know why he never told her about the boyfriends, and then saying that she never wanted to see him again. He remembers how her anger and hurt had nothing on the disgusted look Thror gave him, when the whole thing was Thror’s fault in the first place. He lays out the rough outline of it for Bilbo, keeping the gory details to himself. Some things you can’t say out loud.

Bilbo is silent for a long moment. “That’s despicable,” he says quietly. “All of it.”

“I was an idiot.” Thorin shrugs. “I deleted everything after that. And I’m not planning on playing the idiot a second –”

Thorin breaks off, because Bilbo’s just put his hands down and leaned back on them, just as Thorin is doing – and the side of his left hand is pressed against Thorin’s right. If Bilbo realizes it or cares about it, it doesn’t show. “What were you saying?”

“Time,” Thorin mutters, trying to control his heart rate and conceal his surprise. “I’m not going to play the idiot a second time.”

“Keeping pictures of you and your exes doesn’t make you an idiot,” Bilbo says. He crosses his legs at the ankle. “I’m sure I still have some lying around. But that’s not the point. The point is that even if you were the biggest idiot on the face of the earth, that still wouldn’t excuse what they did.”

“I’m not looking to excuse it,” Thorin says. Bilbo’s skin is warm against his, and he just keeps – not moving away. “Just not to dwell on it.”

“Except you are dwelling on it,” Bilbo says – snaps, almost. Thorin glances at him, sees that his jaw is clenched. “I watched you sing that song. It was clear how much you were enjoying yourself. And you weren’t going to do it because of some egotistical basement-dwelling mouth-breathers who made you think there was something wrong with you.”

“I know there’s nothing wrong with me,” Thorin objects. He realizes that Bilbo’s angry. He’s never seen Bilbo like this before. “I watched those ‘It Gets Better’ videos, same as everybody else.”

Bilbo lets out a little snort at that. Then he’s quiet for a while, and when he speaks again, his voice is calmer. Thorin can still hear the anger, churning beneath the surface. “I want you to do something for me.”

“Do something for you?” Thorin repeats. “Like what?”

Thorin’s mind provides several possibilities, all of which break at least three of his rules. He tries not to think about them, aware at this point that pushing his feelings to the back of his mind does not make them go away. And what Bilbo says next makes them impossible to ignore. “I want you to give me your word,” Bilbo says, “that you will leave Smaug to me.”

Thorin opens his mouth, but Bilbo holds up a hand to forestall him. “I’m your agent. It’s my job to handle things like this.”

“Smaug isn’t something you handle,” Thorin says. His grandfather couldn’t handle him; his father couldn’t stop him. Thorin wonders how much Bilbo knows about what really happened.

“Everything is something I can handle,” Bilbo says shortly. “Give me your word.”

Thorin hesitates, and Bilbo presses his advantage. “Bruce Springsteen retweeted your songs. You owe me.”

This, of all things, makes Thorin laugh. “You have my word.”

“Good,” Bilbo says. His hand is still pressed against Thorin’s. “You know, I think your lack of social media might work in our favor. If you show up in the others’ feeds every so often, people who want to see you will follow them and it’ll drive our overall numbers up.”

“I think you’re overestimating my desirability.”

“I’m the one reading our social media mentions,” Bilbo says, “and I’m not. Not in the slightest. If anything, I’m underestimating it.”

Thorin realizes that he’s not sure what they’re talking about any more. And he’s thinking way too much about Bilbo’s hand, how it’s clever and capable and so much smaller than his. What is he going to do? Should he do anything? He’s almost convinced he’s imagining it. As if Thorin’s panic has summoned him, Balin wanders through his field of vision. “Shall we get going, then? Kili’s selfie attempts are escalating.”

Thorin twists around, trying to get a sight line on his younger nephew. “What do you mean by escalating?”

“He’s trying a handstand,” Bilbo reports. He lifts his right hand and points.

This seems like the kind of thing that will result in a concussion for Kili and several angry phone calls from Thorin’s sister. “Kili! Cut that out. We’re going!”

Gandalf leads the hike on the way down. Thorin winds up walking near the back, with Bilbo. “So,” Bilbo says after nearly half an hour of silence, “should we do this again?”

“I think so,” Thorin says. His hair is caught on his guitar again, and he can’t seem to untangle it. He finally settles for moving his head as little as possible. “The rest of the band seemed happy with it, once they got over the hiking part.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Thorin sees Bilbo studying the trail intently. His next question is inflected so as to dispel the notion that he cares about the answer. Thorin’s done it himself, which is why it doesn’t quite work. “Was it a good surprise?”

Thorin turns to look at him, forgetting for a moment about his hair snagged on the guitar – but only for a moment, because pulling on it as suddenly as he did makes his scalp sting. Thorin swears. “I don’t care about social media. I’m cutting it all off as soon as we get back to the bus, and I – what are you doing?”

“Hold still,” Bilbo says. He’s standing on his tiptoes. One hand is up on Thorin’s shoulder, steadying himself; the other is meticulously untangling Thorin’s hair. Thorin stands there, paralyzed. He’s not even sure what he’s supposed to do in a situation like this – except definitely not enjoy it as much as he’s doing, in a weird, ashamed sort of way. “You are not cutting your hair. We’ve been over this.”

Thorin feels Bilbo’s breath against his ear, the side of his neck. He clamps down on a shiver before it can run through him. “I thought you said you couldn’t stop me if I wanted to cut it.”

“Well, I changed my mind,” Bilbo says brusquely. His fingers move faster. “No haircuts as long as I’m your agent.”

An alternative explanation for Bilbo’s insistence on Thorin’s hair pops into his head. Maybe it’s not so much about the band, given the way Bilbo responds every time Thorin even makes a joke about cutting it. Maybe it’s because Bilbo likes it the way it is. Bilbo takes his hand away and steps back, lowering back to flat feet. Even on his tiptoes, his eyes were only level with Thorin’s chin. “There,” he says. He rubs the back of his neck. “You might want to consider putting in more braids. They don’t seem to snag as easily as the loose strands.”

“Noted,” Thorin manages, trying to stamp out his new theory about Bilbo’s behavior before it can assert itself. He looks back down the path and sees half of Bombur disappearing around a switchback. The band’s gotten ahead of them.

If Thorin were someone else, if Bilbo wasn’t who he is, if they were bound together by something other than a contract, Thorin would take advantage of the moment of privacy. He’d wrap his arms around Bilbo’s waist – no, just around him, period – no, Thorin would take Bilbo’s face in his hands so he could look into his eyes before he kissed him. All of Thorin’s ideas end in a kiss, which makes all of them bad ideas. Very attractive bad ideas. Not unlike Bilbo himself.

Thorin starts picking his way down the trail with more urgency than before. Bilbo hurries after him, but Thorin’s legs are longer, and distance opens up between he and Bilbo. He hears Bilbo’s footsteps pick up speed. “Thorin, wait. Thorin – oh, come on!”

Thorin turns around, because this last doesn’t fit with the rest. He’s just in time to catch Bilbo as Bilbo trips over a rock and prevent him from going face-first into the ground. Bilbo’s forehead hits Thorin’s chest. They’re on an incline, which shrinks the difference between their heights, and Bilbo’s hair is brushing against Thorin’s neck, his chin. Physical proximity is not helpful in the slightest, given the things Thorin’s been thinking about. Thorin puts his hands on Bilbo’s shoulders, more gently than the last time this happened, and sets him back on his feet.

“Sorry,” Bilbo says. He won’t make eye contact.

“It happens,” Thorin says. His right hand moves and he clenches it into a fist at his side. His hand may not know better, but his mind does. He keeps looking at Bilbo, enjoying the view while trying to think of a way to extract himself from the situation with his dignity intact, until a sharp, bright sound assaults his ears. A pause. Then the same thing happens again, in a particular rhythm, and coming closer.

Now Bilbo’s looking at Thorin. “Can you think of any reason,” he says, “why Kili would choose this moment to perform a tambourine solo?”

Who knows why Kili does anything? Certainly not Thorin. But then Thorin hears footsteps coming back up the path, and he and Bilbo both turn to find the rest of the band marching back up towards them, identical expressions of fear on their faces. Gandalf and Kili bring up the rear, and they’re going up the path backwards, Gandalf with his walking stick held out in front of him and Kili with the tambourine held above his head, still doggedly shaking it. It’s an absolutely ridiculous scene, and Thorin realizes all at once that there’s a very good reason for it. That doesn’t make it less entertaining, though.

“Bear,” he says in answer to Bilbo’s question.

Bilbo throws up his hands. “Not you, too!”

“We’re not joking,” Balin says. Balin is leading the pack, which makes since, because he doesn’t have an real instrument to protect him. The harmonica players are right behind him. “Look over the edge of the path. He might still be down there.”

Bilbo approaches the edge cautiously, and after a moment, so does Thorin. “Oh,” Bilbo says. He rocks back on his heels. “That’s definitely a bear.”

Thorin peers down at it. It looks to be a grizzly. He decides he’s not going to tell Bilbo that. “It doesn’t care about us,” he says. “All it cares about is getting fat for the winter, and it would have to expend more energy than we’re worth to catch and eat us.”

“Oh. Well, that’s comforting,” Bilbo says sarcastically.

Kili keeps shaking the tambourine. It sounds like he’s shaking it straight down Thorin’s right ear canal, and when he turns and finds Kili right next to him, he understands why. “Would you stop that?”

“There might be more bears,” Kili says, although he does move the tambourine farther away from Thorin’s ear. “We need to make a lot of noise so we don’t startle them.”

It occurs to Thorin that he’s the one who taught Kili this – on the same camping trip where he told him that the bear canisters were bear-proof hideouts. He’s surprised Kili remembered. “Good job,” he says, and Kili gives him a surprised look. Then he smiles.

Bilbo is bouncing on the balls of his feet. “How long do we have to wait for it to go away?”

“It’s going away now. Look,” Balin points, and sure enough, the bear is ambling up the slope in the opposite direction from where they need to go.

“Let’s give it a little more space,” Gandalf says. He was leading the group, which means he was the first one to see the bear. It seems to have rattled him somewhat, and Thorin has the feeling that Gandalf is going to spend at least an hour or two of the drive out of the park smoking with his head out the window.

Bilbo backs away from the edge, frowning. He speaks to Thorin in a low voice. “I thought you all were joking about the bears.”

“No,” Thorin says, “I’m afraid not.”

“Fili said I’d make a good bear snack.”

“Do you remember what else Fili said?” Thorin asks.

Bilbo looks up and around, as though the answer might be up there somewhere. Then he turns towards Thorin. “You mean the part where he said no bear would be dumb enough to go after you?”

“That part,” Thorin agrees, wondering what exactly he's trying to accomplish here. “Now look at where you’re standing.”

Bilbo looks around again. Then back at Thorin. “You’re saying that your bear-repelling powers are going to protect me because I’m standing with you.”

Thorin nods and shrugs. He hopes he doesn’t look as stupid as he feels. “Therefore,” Bilbo says slowly, “I should make sure to stay by you for the rest of the hike.”

“If you think it’s a good idea,” Thorin says. Personally, he thinks it’s a very good idea.

“Well, then,” Bilbo says after a long moment in which Thorin wonders if he’s blown it, “that’s easy enough.”

They wait until the bear’s out of sight before continuing down the path. If there are other bears, Kili’s tambourine succeeds in warding them off. Bilbo trips three or four times on the way down. Thorin catches him every time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who bookmarked/left kudos, and a special thank you to LostGryphin for commenting - your comments are always so thoughtful. Y'all keep me posting.


	7. Chapter 7

“Where are you, Thorin?” Dis asks, and Thorin jams the phone against his ear even harder than before. “It’s really loud.”

“Somewhere in eastern Washington,” Thorin says. He twists around in his seat to glare at Fili and Kili, who are playing music very loudly through a portable speaker they bought in Boise. He makes eye contact with each of them, then draws a finger across his throat. “We’re on the bus. Sorry about the noise.”

“It’s okay,” Dis says. “Thanks for picking up. _Some people_ in our family aren’t so good at responding to texts.”

“They’re your kids, D,” Thorin says. Using her nickname tends to remind her how much older than him she is. “I can take them off your hands, but I can’t turn them into responsible adults.”

“By your standards, T, none of us are responsible adults,” Dis says, firing back with his nickname to remind him just how much younger he is than her. “You came out of Mom as a responsible adult. Anyway, how are the boys? Are they keeping up with their online classes?”

Online classes? If they’re in online classes, this is the first Thorin’s heard about it. “Yes,” he says. As soon as he gets off the phone, he and Kili and Fili are going to have a talk. “They’re working very hard.”

“And they haven’t gotten in any more fights?” Dis asks.

“No,” Thorin says. He tries not to think about how much beer they drink. “They’re perfectly healthy.”

“What about the rest of the band?” she asks. “I’ve been watching your social media. Bruce Springsteen retweeted you – Grandpa’s got to be rolling over in his grave.”

The thought gives Thorin no small amount of enjoyment. Erebor Records had been considering signing Bruce Springsteen back in the early seventies, but Thror rejected the deal on the grounds that Springsteen had yet to produce a major hit. Born to Run dropped six months later. Thorin started listening to Bruce Springsteen at least partially to spite his grandfather, who could barely contain his rage whenever the name came up. “Let him roll.”

Dis laughs. “That agent of yours is some kind of miracle worker,” she says, and Thorin finds himself nodding. “Where did you find him?”

“Gandalf found him,” Thorin says. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Out of habit, Thorin glances over at Bilbo. If Bilbo knows that Thorin’s talking about him, he doesn’t show it – except, wait, he’s looking at Thorin from under his stupidly long eyelashes, a smile tugging lopsidedly at the corner of his mouth. Thorin adjusts his gaze, pretends to be inordinately interested in something out the front window.

“T, I think you probably had something to do with it,” Dis says. “Your miracle agent wouldn’t have signed the band if you hadn’t impressed him.”

“Not just me. The band,” Thorin corrects. “We had a really good show that night.”

“It seems like you’ve been having really good shows every night since,” Dis says. Dis has been in Thorin’s corner since the day he was born; Thror cut off financial support to her midway through her master’s degree when she refused to shame Thorin for coming out. The more strained Thorin’s relationship with Thror became, the more welcome Thorin was in his sister’s house, with his sister’s family. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to see things coming together for you, after all your hard work. I’m so proud of you, T.”

Thorin’s throat closes off with tears. He coughs into his hand, wishing Kili and Fili would turn the music back up. “Thanks, D. That means a lot.”

“I’ve always been proud of you,” Dis says. “And it seems like Smaug is staying away.”

“I don’t know what’s up with that,” Thorin says. “I’m not complaining – I just wish I knew why.”

“He’s working on that big music festival in Canada,” Dis says. “It’s called Northern Lights or something? It’s supposed to be huge. Maybe he’s gotten over torturing you.”

Thorin doesn’t think Smaug has ever gotten over torturing anybody. He would have kept after Thror forever if Thror hadn’t offed himself before forever happened. “He’ll be back soon enough. I might as well enjoy the good life before the sky falls in.”

Dis sighs. “There’s something we need to talk about,” she says. Her voice softens. “Thorin –”

He knows what she’s going to say. It’s the same conversation they’ve been dancing around for three years. “I can’t think about it right now,” Thorin says. Fear stabs him in the gut, and he struggles to keep his voice steady. “There’s too much going on.”

“Thorin, you need a plan,” Dis says. “I don’t care if you get the test. It’s your choice, and besides, this isn’t about that. It’s about you, and what you’re going to do.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” Thorin says. “Having a plan won’t change what’s going to happen.”

“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” Dis says. She doesn’t have to say, _You haven’t done the test_, but Thorin knows it’s what she’s thinking. It’s what he’s thinking, too.

He lowers his voice. “Not now, D. Please?”

“Okay,” she says. Thorin imagines where his sister is right now – at her office, in her house on Lake Tahoe, driving home from work with him on speakerphone. She’s quiet for a moment; when she speaks again, her voice has a forced cheeriness to it. “So where are you headed through eastern Washington?”

“Seattle,” Thorin says. He glances at Bilbo for confirmation. Bilbo nods, but his brows are furrowed in a way Thorin hasn’t seen before. “We’re going to be there for a couple weeks, I think.”

“I wish I could come up and see you,” Dis says wistfully. “You and the boys, but I’ve got four different thesis defenses coming up and the symposium after that.”

“Maybe we’ll add some tour dates in your area,” Thorin says. Bilbo is nodding. Even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea of where Thorin’s sister lives, he’s not at all concerned about being able to make it happen. “I know we’d all love to see you.”

The band as a whole are very fond of Dis, and they aren’t shy of showing it; whenever they swing by Dis’s place, they do every chore they can think of doing both inside and outside the house. She always protests that she doesn’t need help. Thorin is certain she’s capable of doing it by herself. But ever since Dis’s husband broke his leg and his hip in a skiing accident, Thorin and the band have picked up the slack whenever they can. In Thorin’s case, it’s the least he can do to pay her back for everything she’s done for him.

“I hope it works out,” Dis says. Thorin hears voices in the background of the call. Dis shouts something at them, then says, “I have to go. One of the student protests is getting a little out of hand.”

Dis is the Dean of Students at one of the community colleges near Lake Tahoe. It’s a much harder job than Thorin thought it would be when he heard about it. “Okay. Go stop the students from killing each other.”

“You know I will. After sitting through forty years of family dinners with Dad and Grandpa, this is easy.” Dis laughs, and Thorin joins in. “Bye, T. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Thorin says. His sister hangs up first.

Thorin spins his phone in his hand, wondering what he should deal with first. Fili and Kili, who are apparently ignoring the online classes they promised their mother they’d take? Bilbo, who needs to know where Dis lives if he’s going to find them a booking nearby? Thorin himself, who needs to make a decision, and soon? He decides he doesn’t have the energy for Kili and Fili at the moment, decides to keep ignoring the problem he’s been ignoring for three years, and turns to Bilbo.

Bilbo is already looking at him expectantly. “Where does your sister live?”

“Lake Tahoe,” Thorin says, and Bilbo nods. “Can you do it?”

“I might need to make a few phone calls,” Bilbo says, “but it shouldn’t be a problem. We’re headed to San Francisco first, and we can cut across from there.”

He’s still frowning ever so slightly. Thorin studies him. “What is it?”

“What is what?” Bilbo is tapping away on his laptop, and now he seems to be going out of his way to avoid looking at Thorin.

Thorin’s not good at getting people to talk about themselves. But he tries to piece together the conversation, what he was saying when he saw Bilbo frown. “What’s in Seattle?”

“Half a dozen of your bookings,” Bilbo says. He’s still not looking at Thorin. “Two national parks within a day’s drive. The Space Needle. That open-air market where you throw the fish. Lots of things.”

He’s scowling now, and Thorin figures it out. Bilbo rarely gives more information than he needs to, but this time, he has. “You’re from Seattle,” he says.

“No,” Bilbo says. “I’m from Portland. I grew up in Seattle. I live in Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles?” Thorin says. That wasn’t what he expected. “You own too many sweaters to live in Los Angeles.”

A crack appears in Bilbo’s frown. “I’ve only lived there for a year and a half,” he says indignantly. “Besides, it took me a long time to accumulate all those sweaters. I’m not going to just get rid of them.”

“Why did you move to L.A.?” Thorin asks. The more he thinks about L.A., the more he thinks that it doesn’t match Bilbo at all. It’s sprawling, enormous, ostentatious, and everything on the surface is designed to hide what lies beneath. “It doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

“It isn’t, really,” Bilbo says. “But there was a job for me there, and it was time to get out of Seattle.”

Thorin wants to keep asking questions. He wants to know why Bilbo is frowning like that, why it was time to get out of Seattle. What happened there. Why Bilbo’s tour schedule has them going back there for three weeks. But there’s a stubborn set to Bilbo’s mouth, and Thorin has a feeling that pressing the point won’t end well for him. Instead he goes for practicality. “Where are we going to stay? I don’t imagine there are a lot of campgrounds in Seattle.”

“None you’d want to be in,” Bilbo says. “We’d all get mugged.”

Thorin thinks about the band. “I’d hate to be the person who tried mugging Dwalin.”

“Oh, that would be terrible,” Bilbo says. “They’d lay one finger on his instrument case and he’d rip their arms off.”

Thorin can’t help chuckling at this, and a moment later, Bilbo smiles. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “In any case, I have a place set up for us to stay. Rent-free.”

“Does ‘rent-free’ mean that it’s coming out of your discretionary fund?” Thorin asks.

“No, rent-free means rent-free,” Bilbo says. He’s back to tapping away on the keyboard. “I have it under control. If I were you, I’d focus on your writing.”

Thorin’s writing. Durin save him. Thorin has been having a very hard time writing lately. Part of his strength as a lyricist, he’s always thought, is that he does his best to steer clear of some of the clichés common to country music. He tried explaining this to Bilbo once, via the joke about what happens when you rewind a country song, and then discovered that Bilbo tends to choke if you make him laugh while he’s eating. But that’s beside the point. The point is, Thorin’s always prided himself on topic diversity in his songs. And lately that’s gone out the window.

The band needs new songs, and although Thorin has pressed into service everyone who can string a rhyming couplet together, most of their songs aren’t ready for a big stage. Most of them aren’t ready for any type of stage. And some of them, Thorin thinks, should be locked in a box and never allowed out.

“Uncle Thorin?” Fili says. Somehow, without Thorin noticing, he’s snuck into the row of seats behind him. “Do you have a second?”

“Yes,” Thorin says. He sets his notebook, open on two blank pages, aside. “What is it?”

Fili drops a piece of notebook paper over the seats. Thorin grabs it. “I wrote a song,” Fili says. “What do you think?”

Thorin eyeballs the title. Tequila Daydream. It’s not the worst title Thorin’s ever seen, but it’s close. He shifts down to reading the lyrics and spots a problem almost immediately. “Fili, what have I told you about syllabic rhyme?”

Fili sulks. “Only four times per song.”

“You’ve got five already and you’re not even to the first chorus,” Thorin says. He keeps reading, looking for something redeemable about the song, but it’s hard to tell what it’ll be like without notation. “What’s it’s supposed to sound like?”

“Uh…” Fili casts around for an example. “Like, uh –”

He lowers his voice. “Rascal Flatts.”

“I heard that,” Bofur bellows from the driver’s seat.

Something impacts on the back of Thorin’s seat. A glance upward shows him that it’s Kili. “I wrote a song, too,” Kili says. He flails a crumpled piece of notebook paper in Thorin’s face. “Can I show you?”

“It’s my turn. Get out of here.” Fili aims a shove at his younger brother. “My song’s better, anyway.”

“Your song sucks. That’s why Thorin’s making that face,” Kili says, hanging on for dear life to avoid being shoved into the aisle. Thorin hastily rearranges his expression. “Let me try.”

“Just a second,” Thorin says. He rereads Fili’s lyrics again, then makes eye contact with his older nephew. “I’m going to read Kili’s, and then we’ll talk.”

Thorin sets Fili’s lyrics aside and allows Kili to force his own lyrics into his hands. Kili’s handwriting is hideous; it takes Thorin thirty seconds to figure out what he’s looking at, and to realize that he’s looking at it upside down. He rights the paper and starts reading. Kili has named his song Tequila Nightmare, and it’s an apt title, given that Kili’s lyrics are describing a combination of a breakup, a bar fight, a DUI, and the worst hangover of your life. In all honesty, Thorin thinks Kili’s captured the idea and experience of tequila better than Fili has.

That doesn’t mean he wants to sing either song. Thorin doesn’t think he could get through the lyrics with a straight face, and besides, if he spits out that much syllabic rhyme he’s going to lose whatever dignity he has left. But if he has to pick one, he knows which one he wants. “If you can arrange these for the band, we’ll play them,” Thorin says. “But you’ll be singing lead.”

Fili pumps a fist in victory. Kili protests. “No fair!”

“How is it unfair?” Thorin asks. He can afford to be magnanimous at this point; he’s just gotten out of ever having to perform Kili’s song. “I just told you. We’ll play it, but you’re singing lead.”

“You know I can’t sing!”

“I don’t know that,” Thorin says, pretending cluelessness.

“I don’t know it, either,” Fili adds. “What do you mean, you can’t sing?”

Kili looks like he’s about to explode. “Give me my song back.”

“No,” Thorin says. Kili makes a lunge for it, and he holds it just out of reach. “I’m keeping it. Any time you want to start arranging it, let me know.”

“I hate you,” Kili says, scowling. “Both of you.”

“Better luck next time, little brother,” Fili says, patting his shoulder. “You know Mom always loved me best.”

Speaking of Thorin’s sister – “How long have you two been in online classes?”

Fili blanches. “What?”

“Online classes?” Kili seems to have decided that his best option is to play dumb. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Don’t even try it,” Thorin warns. “I don’t care how far behind the two of you are, you’re going to catch up, starting right now. I’m not getting murdered by my sister over this.”

Fili covers his face with his hands. “Did you tell her?”

“Did I tell her? No. I’m not an idiot,” Thorin says. “If I told her that the two of you haven’t said one word about online classes, I’d lose my drummer, my backup singer, and my ability to hear out of one ear.”

Now they’re looking ashamed of themselves, like a couple of kicked puppies. “Thanks,” Kili says, eyes downcast. “For not telling her. She would have been really mad.”

“I know,” Thorin says. His sister takes school very seriously. “Just pull it together. No more beer until you’re caught up.”

“Oh, come on!”

Thorin stands up in his seat, appealing over the heads of both his protesting nephews for help. Gandalf pops up out of his seat. “Kili, Fili, come back here. I’ll keep you company while you work.”

“This sucks,” Kili says.

“It’s our fault it sucks,” Fili says. “Come on – the sooner we fix it, the sooner we can forget about it.”

“Not until the quarter ends!” Thorin calls after them. Once Gandalf gets ahold of them, he sits back down and picks up his notebook again. Thorin folds up both tequila songs and tucks them into the back of the notebook. He hears someone clear their throat. He looks up.

Bilbo’s smirking at him. “You know, if you had to pick something to motivate them with, I think beer is a good choice. You can’t exactly restrict Kili’s access to girls.”

“If only,” Thorin mutters.

Bilbo’s in more of a talkative mood than he was previously. “I didn’t know that Kili can’t sing.”

“The only person who thinks Kili can’t sing is Kili,” Thorin says. “He was into musical theatre in high school – he was fifteen, I think? – and he was in this show.”

“What show?” Bilbo asks.

Thorin shrugs. “You know, the one with the dancing.”

“They all have dancing.”

Thorin closes his eyes, trying to remember. There’s a moment of terror when he can’t; then it comes back. “It was this thing about kids delivering newspapers.”

“Newsies,” Bilbo says. “Who was he playing?”

“Whoever the lead was,” Thorin says. “He had this whole song about Santa Fe –”

“He was Jack,” Bilbo says. Thorin stares at him, and he flushes. “Forget it. Go on. What happened?”

Bilbo likes musical theatre. Thorin tries to wrap his head around this new piece of information, to fit it into what he already knows about Bilbo Baggins, all while he’s continuing the story. “He was right in the middle of that Santa Fe song and he just froze. Deer in the headlights, onstage, in front of five hundred people. Fili had to go up there and drag him off into the wings – and then he had to go back out and understudy for him. It was a nightmare.”

“Poor Kili,” Bilbo observes.

“He wouldn’t come out from under his bed for eighteen hours,” Thorin says. “He said he was never singing in front of people again, and the next day, he started learning drums. We never thought he’d stick to it. And now it’s been six years.”

“He’s very good at drums,” Bilbo says after a moment. “Do you think he misses singing?”

“I would,” Thorin says. “We’ve tried to get him back into it – all of us, at one point or another. He won’t budge.”

“Which turned out to be a lucky thing for you,” Bilbo says, “because it means that The Lonely Mountains are not going to have to perform Tequila Nightmare.”

“You knew they were writing those?” Thorin asks.

“I knew they were working on something,” Bilbo says. He snorts. “I’d keep an eye out, if I were you. I doubt those will be the last songs about girls and alcohol you see out of those two.”

Bilbo seems to be in a better mood now. Thorin risks a question. “Are you looking forward to going back to Seattle?”

“Maybe,” Bilbo says after a moment. “I don’t know. But I’d rather be on this bus, with all of you, than anywhere else.”

Somehow, this lifts Thorin’s heart and breaks it at the same time. He doesn’t know what to say. He just nods, and Bilbo nods in return, and then they both go back to their work. Bilbo on his computer, and Thorin to his notebook. He has songs to write.

* * *

“Oi, fuckface!” Nori pitches a can at the car skidding around the corner at top speed. “Watch where you’re going!”

“Nori, relax,” Balin says. “It didn’t hit us.”

“It could have,” Bilbo mutters. “People here drive like they’re trying to kill someone. I can’t believe I forgot.”

Bilbo’s bad mood is back. But Thorin can’t worry about it now. He’s more worried about maneuvering the bus into the side lot of a three-story house. It’s yellow, with a green door. Bilbo guided them here without a map, but it’s taking all of them plus Bofur to guide the bus in.

“Keep going,” Thorin says, beckoning. “Keep going, keep going – no, stop. Stop!”

Bofur hits the brakes a third of the way through his three-point turn. “Did I hit anything?”

Thorin calls out to Gloin, who’s watching the back left corner of the bus. “Did we hit anything?”

“We’re about six inches from the bumper of this Mercedes,” Gloin says, “but not quite.”

“All right,” Thorin says. “Bofur, pull forward. Try not to hit me.”

“Don’t worry,” Bofur says airily. The bus creeps forward, and Thorin tries not to feel nervous. In a collision between Thorin and the bus, the bus is going to win hands-down.

“Back up a bit,” Gandalf calls. “Try and line it up again.”

Bofur starts backing up. Handling backing up is not Thorin’s responsibility. Someone in the street is honking at them. Bofur is waving and smiling and pretending to be deaf. By Durin, Thorin hopes they get this done soon. Otherwise half their neighbors will be out to murder them come nightfall.

“All right, then, lads,” Bofur says. “Are we good?”

Thorin peers around the bus, first to the right, and then to the left. The lot is wide at the front, narrow at the back, making parking the bus even more difficult than it would be ordinarily. “I think you’re clear. Pull forward. Slowly.”

“Is the bus still hanging out?” Bofur calls as he edges forward. “We can’t leave her here with her ass in the wind!”

“The bus is a she now?” Thorin says incredulously. The bus’s front bumper is approaching him slowly. He doesn’t think that Bofur is actually going to flatten him between the bus and the side lot’s back wall, but the bus is somewhat unpredictable. He keeps beckoning it forward. In spite of how he phrased it, Bofur has a point.

“We could use some gender diversity,” Bofur says. He makes a face. “How am I doing?”

“Keep coming,” Thorin says. He starts backing up himself, but he’s rapidly running out of space between the bus and the wall. “Keep coming, keep coming. Slowly!”

“Uh-oh,” Bofur says a moment later, and Thorin looks up to see the bus coming toward him much faster than before, blocking his vision, blocking the faint Seattle sun. The small part of Thorin’s mind that’s not panicking about how he’s about to die decides that the brake lines must have snapped again – that’s an expensive repair. Hopefully they can afford it. Thorin closes his eyes.

The bus comes to a screeching halt eight inches in front of Thorin’s face. A hideous smell permeates the air – burned rubber, mixed with brake fluid. Bofur must have used the parking brake to stop. Panicked shouting rises from the street outside, but louder than all of them is Bilbo’s voice. “Thorin! Is Thorin all right?”

“Thorin’s fine,” Bofur calls back. “We just need to figure out how to get him out of there.”

Thorin solves the problem himself by climbing up the bus’s hood, walking across the top of it, and climbing back down streetside. Bofur exits in a more orderly fashion. He uses the door, and they both emerge onto the street at the same time. The others are standing there, various degrees of alarm etched into their faces. Except for Bilbo’s. He looks angry. Very angry.

“What was that?” he shouts at Bofur. His cheeks are red. “What happened?”

“Brake lines snapped,” Bofur says, taken aback. “It’s happened before.”

“You could have crushed him,” Bilbo explodes, pointing at Thorin. “Do none of you know the meaning of the word careful?”

Gandalf settles a hand on Bilbo’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Bilbo. Practice your breathing exercises.”

“I – don’t – want – to – practice,” Bilbo spits.

“All right,” Balin says. He approaches Bilbo carefully, as though he’s a bomb about to go off. “Maybe you should go into the house. The rest of us will be there shortly.”

“House. Fine.” Bilbo storms off.

The door opens, then slams shut. Thorin and the others exchange glances, and Thorin takes some measure of relief in the fact that the rest of them are as confused as he is. Kili finally says what they’re all thinking. “Uh, what just happened?”

“You’ll have to go easy on Bilbo,” Gandalf says mildly. “He’s having a stressful day. Come on, pick up your things and let’s go inside.”

The others move. Thorin hangs back. He wants to talk to Gandalf about something. He repeats Kili’s question, in a tone that suggests that Gandalf really should answer this time. “What just happened? Don’t give me an excuse. I’ve never seen him that angry before.”

Gandalf sighs. He adjusts his hat. “It is hard for Bilbo to be here,” he says after a moment. “This city holds a lot of memories, not all of them good.”

Thorin crosses his arms. “That’s not very specific.”

“If you want specific,” Gandalf says, “you should ask him yourself.”

Thorin supposes he left himself open to that one. He picks up his duffel bag off the ground, slings his backpack over his shoulder, hefts his guitar, and makes his way through the green door into the yellow house.

Already the band has begun to make themselves at home. Thorin can hear laughter, and footsteps, and arguing as they move through the halls and rooms. Thorin comes to a stop in the entryway, listening for a moment, and as he does he realizes that it’s a nice house. A very nice house. Directly ahead of him is a staircase, rising to a partially open hallway. To the left, Thorin sees a room with bookshelves and a piano, and a window seat that looks out over the street. The whole house is set on a hill, which means the window seat also looks out at the city. It’s a nice view.

Thorin looks down at the floor beneath his feet. Carpet. When he glances back to the door, he sees pairs of shoes lined up neatly against the wall. Clearly, this is a no-shoes household. Thorin sits down in the entryway and takes off his own shoes. He hears footsteps on the stairs and looks up. There’s Bilbo, descending the stairs. He looks somewhat calmer now, although there are still twin spots of color high on his cheekbones. He stops short when he sees Thorin.

Thorin pulls off his other shoe and lines it up next to the first. “Sorry about that. I’m sure our new neighbors hate us already.”

Bilbo doesn’t respond to this. Instead a question all but explodes out of him. “Are you all right?”

“It didn’t hit me,” Thorin says. He doesn’t mention the way his heart lurched when he saw the bus coming.

“I know it didn’t hit you,” Bilbo says. He comes closer. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Thorin says. “This is a nice house.”

Bilbo stares at Thorin for a moment; then he starts looking around the house like he’s never seen it before. Maybe he hasn’t. “Oh,” he says. “I suppose it is.”

Thorin nods. The space between them feels strange, and he doesn’t know what to say to fix it. Bilbo clears his throat and speaks again. “I may have overreacted out there. As long as you’re all right, because if you’re not, then I reacted exactly as I’m supposed to.”

He extends a hand to Thorin, and Thorin stares at it for a moment before he realizes that Bilbo means to help him up. “That’s a bad idea,” Thorin says. He’s still extended his hand partway; his feelings are running at least part of the show. “I’m twice your size.”

“Oh, shut up,” Bilbo says, and he grabs Thorin’s hand and yanks.

Thorin has no choice but to follow him up, in order to avoid getting his arm pulled out of its socket. Bilbo is stronger than he looks; his grip on Thorin’s hand is steady. Thorin has to make himself let go. He looks up and Thorin looks down and their eyes meet and they’re almost nose to nose. Thorin takes a step backwards. He’s not sure what will happen if he doesn’t. An idea pops into his head, and then Thorin is scrambling for his backpack, and his notebook within it.

Bilbo stares at him. “What are you doing?”

“Idea,” Thorin explains. “For a song.”

Bilbo’s expression clears. “Oh, good. Good! Don’t let me interrupt.”

He hurries off before Thorin can say anything else. Thorin sits back down in the entryway, finds a pen, and starts writing. Gandalf comes in a few minutes later and scares him so badly that he draws a jagged line across the page. Gandalf looks down at him, puzzled. Then he smiles. “Thorin Oakenshield, are you writing again?”

“I’m trying,” Thorin says. Gandalf’s smile widens.

From somewhere in the house, Thorin hears Kili shouting. “Hey, there’s food in here!”

“Yes. Yes, there is food in here,” Bilbo is saying in response. “I had someone come by with groceries.”

“How did you find this place, anyway?” Dwalin grunts. It sounds like he’s talking through a full mouth. “Airbnb?”

“Do you know how much an Airbnb like this would cost? For three weeks?” Bilbo says, appalled. “No. It’s – uh – a friend of mine’s. He travels a lot for work, and I talked him into letting us borrow the house. If all of you break anything, I’m on the hook for it.”

“Oh,” says Fili seriously. “We were planning on breaking everything, but now we won’t. Isn’t that right, boys?”

Sounds and statements of assent travel through the house. When Bilbo speaks again, he sounds exasperated. “For the life of me, I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

Thorin moves to stand up, but Gandalf stops him. “I’ll go rescue Bilbo. You concentrate on finishing your song.”

Ordinarily, Thorin would find a way to subtly insist that it’s his job to rescue Bilbo, but he does need to finish the song before it gets away from him. He scratches out another verse – it seems easier than it usually is – and the last chorus. Then he sits back and looks at the additions. With those in place, it looks like it’s complete.

I would run the red lights, drive straight through the night

If it meant that you’d maybe be mine

If it meant that you’d fall, then I’d give it all

Put my heart on the firing line

Maybe we’re not there yet, but you’re the best kind of surprise

I feel alive again when I look in your eyes

Thorin’s never written a love song. In spite of two girlfriends and three boyfriends, he’s never managed to write one that doesn’t sound like the unholy offspring of cliché and melodrama. He’s not really sure that this song counts as a love song, either. Thorin knows what he’s writing about. It feels so obvious that he’s certain the band will call him on it as soon as he shows them the lyrics. And yet the song feels like Thorin does. A little inelegant, a little awkward, somewhat embarrassed. But completely and utterly knocked off his feet by someone he just met.

Thorin closes the notebook and stows it in his backpack. Then he stands up and makes his way through the house to kitchen with the others. He only gets lost twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and to this_fish and LostGryphin for the comments - it always makes my day to hear what y'all think.


	8. Chapter 8

“My room is the best one,” Kili says. “It’s round!”

“Our room,” Fili corrects. Then he grins. “Yeah. Our room is the best.”

“Our room has a loft bed,” Bofur says. He keeps glancing guiltily over at Thorin, as thought Thorin is going to blame him for the broken brake lines. In fact, Thorin’s more grateful to him than anything else. If anyone else had been behind the wheel, he doubts they would have reacted in time. “Two loft beds.”

Bombur nods at this. Thorin has a moment to wonder if installing Bombur in a room with loft beds is a good idea. Then Dwalin chimes in. “That’s nothing,” he says. His mouth is full of chips, and he sprays Thorin with crumbs. Thorin backs away. “Mine and Balin’s has a dumbwaiter.”

Kili is indignant over this. “Hey, how come your room has a waiter in it?”

Thorin hears a strange sound from behind the kitchen island. He turns to look and finds Bilbo doubled over and wheezing with laughter. Kili, oblivious to this, continues, his tone more wistful than anything else. “I wish our room had a waiter, Fili. Even a dumb one.”

Thorin has no idea how Fili is managing to keep a straight face. He has to turn around to keep his self-control from breaking. Dwalin is shaking his head, a blank look on his face. Bilbo straightens up for a moment. He beckons Thorin closer, still fighting back laughter but with a mischievous look on his face. “All right, who’s going to tell him?”

Thorin bursts out laughing, propping up one hand on the kitchen island to keep from falling over. His loss of self-control breaks the others, too – they’re all laughing now, even Gandalf. Fili snorts, which seems to surprise him, and the sight of his baffled expression makes Thorin laugh even harder. He wipes at his eyes and straightens up, only to find Kili staring at him, his arms crossed and a mulish look on his face.

“What’s so funny?” his youngest nephew demands.

The fact that Kili thinks there’s no problem at all with his interpretation of the term is really the funniest part of the situation. Thorin doubles over laughing again.

Bilbo decides to lead a field trip up to Dwalin’s and Balin’s room to explain, and Thorin follows the others up the stairs. He still hasn’t been to the second floor of the house. Or the third. Kili, to his credit, isn’t too upset when he figures out what a dumbwaiter actually is. “I think I should have figured it out earlier,” he says to Bilbo. “Why would there be a waiter in your house?”

“My house?” Bilbo blinks. “It’s not my house.”

“Oh. Right,” Kili says, and moves on to critiquing the room and how it compares to his and Fili’s. Bilbo, meanwhile, has a faraway sort of look in his eyes. Thorin’s never seen that look before. He wonders what it means.

He also wonders where his room is. As they’re exiting the dumbwaiter room, Thorin voices the thought. “Where am I sleeping? Am I sharing a room?”

“No, you have your own,” Gandalf says. Thorin should probably be ashamed of himself for being disappointed by this. “It’s very nice. Go get your things and I’ll show you.”

Thorin’s room is on the second floor, too. It’s on the front side of the house, looking out over the city, just like the room with the window seat on the floor below. The view is the first thing Thorin notices. The next thing he notices is that this room has a window seat, too. It also has a very big bed. And a bathroom attached.

“Here you are,” Gandalf says. He makes an expansive gesture with one hand. “And here I take my leave of you.”

Thorin gives him a look. “It wouldn’t kill you to say ‘see you later’.”

“It might,” Gandalf says cryptically. He moves off down the hall, and after a moment’s thought, Thorin shuts the door.

Thorin experiences a juvenile urge to jump on the bed, but he decides the chance of hitting his head on the ceiling is too great, and he aims for the window seat instead, dropping his backpack and duffel bag along the way. It’s more comfortable than he thought it would be. Thorin leans back against the window frame, and the pillow that’s placed there to blunt the edge, and just looks.

Seattle is different than Thorin was expecting. He’s never been here before. Seattle is grey and green and blue, its buildings shining black and silver. There’s water everywhere; a lake on one side, and what Bilbo called the Sound on the other. It’s not quite as cold as Missoula or Fargo, but there’s a sudden sharpness to the air even near October’s end. It’s not quite the city Thorin would have imagined Bilbo in. But it certainly fits better than Los Angeles. This is Bilbo’s city. And this, Thorin is beginning to think, is Bilbo’s house.

He doesn’t buy Bilbo’s story about a friend who travels a lot for work. In truth, Thorin doesn’t want to buy it; the idea of Bilbo knowing this other person so well that they’re willing to lend him their house doesn’t sit well with him. But when Thorin pushes that thought away, he realizes that Bilbo’s description of his friend sounds a lot like Bilbo himself. Then there’s the ease with which Bilbo moves through the house, as though he knows where everything is and isn’t worried about finding something unexpected around a corner. So this is Bilbo’s house. This is where he grew up.

Thorin idly braids a few strands of hair one-handed. He thinks about the anger in Bilbo’s voice and wonders if it was really anger after all. It might have been worry. Yelling at someone when he’s worried about them sounds like something Thorin would do. It makes sense that Bilbo would be worried. If Thorin gets killed or too injured to sing, the band is likely to disintegrate – there’s no one else Thorin can think of who’d want to step in. Besides, without Thorin writing more songs, the band’s repertoire will be augmented by Kili’s and Fili’s tequila songs and whatever else they can come up with. Bilbo needs the band.

Maybe he’s being unfair to Bilbo. It’s possible that Bilbo needs the band and cares about what happens to Thorin at the same time.

Downtime isn’t good for Thorin. He’s finished the one song, and he’s not likely to come up with another one today. He could keep thinking about Bilbo. He doesn’t really get tired of thinking about Bilbo. But Thorin feels his thoughts dragging, pulling him back to the conversation with Dis. His sister’s right. He needs a plan. But in order to have a plan Thorin needs to understand the shape of what he’s up against, and he’s not any more ready to take action on that than he was three years ago, when he found out.

Dis is fine. She’s clear, which means Fili and Kili are, too. That comforts Thorin somewhat. But Thror wasn’t, and neither is Thrain, which means there’s a decent chance that Thorin isn’t, either, and that thought tops the list of things Thorin doesn’t want to think about. He can push off the problem, and keep pushing it off, as long as he’s willing to live with the uncertainty. Thorin prefers the uncertainty. Uncertainty keeps him moving, lends his life a certain urgency, reminds him to make every day count.

Uncertainty keeps him checking and rechecking his own memory, makes him incapable of planning even five years out. Thorin will be thirty next April, which will put him just inside the age range where it strikes. And from then on he’ll be living with the knowledge that any day, pieces of himself could start breaking off, until he can’t even remember what he might be missing, until he sees a stranger when he looks in the mirror. Thorin doesn’t know if he can do that; live his life waiting for the hammer to fall. He doesn’t know if anyone can do that.

Sometimes Thorin wishes that someone, anyone, would make the decision for him. More often, Thorin wishes that someone would promise him things would be all right, someone with the power to make it so or at least make Thorin believe it. But there’s no comfort for such a thing. So Thorin does what he always does with thoughts he can’t reconcile. He stifles them, stuffs them in a box in the back of his mind, and closes the lid.

With that out of the way, Thorin’s thoughts drift back to Bilbo. Bilbo was worried about him. Bilbo seems to care about him. And Thorin – well, Thorin has his rules. Why does Thorin have to make so many rules, anyway? What have his rules done for him except keep him safe from disappointment and embarrassment and heartbreak? Thorin smiles ruefully at himself. His rules have done exactly what he made them to do three years ago, and they’ve been easy to keep to – because in three years Thorin’s never founds something, or someone, he wants enough to break them.

Thorin remembers sharing a tent with Bilbo, remembers the little sounds he made in his sleep. He wonders what he would do if he found himself in a similar position now, with things somewhat different between them. He wouldn’t turn the sleeping bag around so he’d be looking at Bilbo’s feet rather than his face, that’s for certain. Maybe he’d drag the sleeping bag closer to Bilbo’s. Not so close as to be uncomfortable. But close enough that if Thorin reached out he could touch him. Close enough for him to run his fingers along one of the gentle curls in Bilbo’s hair to find out if it’s as soft as it looks. Close enough to trace the line of his jaw, or the shape of his mouth.

Bilbo likes Thorin’s hair. Thorin knows he’s not imagining that. He wonders what it would feel like if Bilbo ran his fingers through it, if Bilbo undid his braids one by one. Even wondering about it sends a ripple of heat down Thorin’s spine. It’s probably good that Bilbo didn’t do that, since even thinking about it seems likely to set Thorin on fire. Even an accidental touch, like the one in the national park, is enough to knock Thorin for a loop. He’s got no idea what would happen if Bilbo did anything – no, worse isn’t the right word – else.

The stupid pajama shirt with its stupid buttons floats across his mind. Bilbo has clever fingers, but so does Thorin, and he thinks he could undo those buttons faster than thought.

Someone knocks on the door, and Thorin jolts himself out of a pleasant daydream that was rapidly getting out of hand. “Yes?”

“Can I open it?” Bilbo’s voice. These things always seem to happen to Thorin at the worst possible time.

He nods, then remembers that Bilbo can’t see him, because the door is closed. Thorin really has no business making fun of Kili for anything, ever. “Yes,” he says, and Bilbo opens the door.

Bilbo’s changed clothes, from a comparatively sedate slate-grey sweater to a rainbow-striped one. For some reason Thorin fixates on it. “Nice sweater.”

“Don’t lie. It looks like I skinned a psychedelic zebra,” Bilbo says, and Thorin tries not to laugh for fear that Bilbo will think he’s laughing at him. “Anyway, I hope your room’s all right.”

“It’s great,” Thorin says, and he means it. Bilbo looks surprised. Thorin needs to compliment him more, if only because the face he makes when he’s surprised is blisteringly cute. Maybe that’s why Thorin keeps talking. “I had to stop myself from jumping on the bed.”

Bilbo smiles. “Whenever I’m in a hotel room, I always jump on the bed. But only if it’s before eight pm.”

Of course. Even when indulging in an impulse, Bilbo wouldn’t dream of disturbing someone else. “At least you wouldn’t be in danger of hitting your head on the ceiling.”

“I suppose not,” Bilbo says. Thorin wonders if Bilbo’s touchy about his height. Why hasn’t he thought about that before? “In any case, the others have decided that they are going to have a movie night, and they have demanded that you attend.”

“A movie night,” Thorin repeats.

“Is that not something they usually do?” Bilbo asks.

“No, they did it, back when we still had money for motels,” Thorin says. “They never tried to make me go before – usually they just decided to watch it in my room and refused to leave. What are they watching?”

“They wouldn’t tell me. They just told me to go get you.”

If they wouldn’t tell Bilbo which movie it was, it means it’s a movie Thorin’s likely to hate. But Thorin has a lot of practice sitting through things he hates. And he doesn’t want to be alone up here. Not with the way his thoughts have been running recently. “All right,” he says. “Wait for me.”

“I haven’t moved,” Bilbo points out. Thorin hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He slides off the window seat and Bilbo shifts aside to allow Thorin to pass through the doorway. Thorin follows Bilbo down the hall, down the staircase, and into a room further towards the back of the house, just off the kitchen. This room is notable for its mismatched assortment of what look to be very comfortable couches, and for the enormous flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. The entire lower floor of the house smells like popcorn.

Kili looks up when he hears their footsteps. “Hey, Bilbo, you got him!”

“That’s what you told me to do,” Bilbo says, puzzled. Then his expression sharpens. “You weren’t expecting it to work, were you?”

“Nope,” Ori says cheerfully. “We figured you’d stand a better chance than we would.”

“Bilbo has powers,” Bofur observes to no one in particular. “He could have his own show: The Thorin Whisperer.”

Kili, Fili, and Balin all burst out laughing, and Thorin very nearly makes a run for it. He stifles the impulse and starts scouting out the couches. “The Thorin Whisperer,” Gloin repeats, snickering. “Featuring everybody’s favorite agent, playing now on a cable channel or a streaming service near you.”

“Hold on, this would only work if we had multiple Thorins,” Dwalin says. “We’ve only got the one. We’d run out of episodes too fast.”

Kili looks to be gearing up to imitate Thorin, something Thorin’s not prepared to tolerate. Thorin spies an opportunity to head things off and takes it. “You know what they say about the weather around here?”

“What about the weather?” Oin says loudly.

“If you don’t like it, wait five minutes,” Bilbo says. Of course he knows; Thorin heard it from him on the drive in. “But what does that have to –”

“You don’t need multiple Thorins to get multiple episodes,” Thorin says. He hates talking about himself in the third person, but it’s a necessity in this situation. “If you don’t like the one you have, wait five minutes.”

Silence for a moment. Then more laughing, from the entire group this time. Thorin can’t remember the last time he told a joke at his own expense. Or told a joke, period. Bofur is chuckling. “I guess you are sort of moody.”

“Sort of?” Nori wheezes. “If he were any moodier he’d be a Rascal Flatts song.”

“Nori,” Bofur says, “you’re my bandmate and my friend. But if you ever compare any of us to Rascal Flatts again, I’m locking you in the bus bathroom after Ori’s been in there.”

Nori blanches “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” Bofur says seriously.

Ori catches on to what he’s talking about. “Hey!”

Under cover of the laughter, Thorin picks a couch, sits down on the floor, and leans back against it. If he’s going to watch whatever movie this is, he might as well be vaguely uncomfortable at the same time, so he can keep his mind on that instead of on his feelings. Then Bilbo sits down on the same couch Thorin is leaning against, and Thorin’s plan to get through this with minimal emotion goes out the window.

Kili and Fili have found two beanbag chairs somewhere, and they’re sitting at an angle to Thorin’s couch, with a bowl of popcorn each and a box of tissues between them. This strikes Thorin as faintly ominous. “What are we watching?”

This question produces a flurry of movement among the band members. “Hurry!” Bofur says. “Start it, quick!”

“We’re all counting on you, Bilbo,” Fili says. “If Thorin tries to get away, sit on him!”

Bilbo starts sputtering. “Sit on – why do I have to sit on him?”

“Because you’re the only one he won’t punch,” Kili puts in. “Take one for the team.”

“I’m not trying to get away,” Thorin says loudly. It’s more of a self-defense mechanism than anything else – he can think of few things he’d enjoy listening to less than Bilbo elaborating on all the reasons why he doesn’t want to sit on Thorin, and Thorin doesn't think the movie, as awful as it's going to be, will make the cut. “Give me some of that popcorn and start the damn thing.”

Bowls of popcorn are passed to both Thorin and Bilbo, and the TV screen brightens, going through thirty seconds of logos. Then it cuts to a low shot over open water. Thorin experiences a moment of deep foreboding right before the music comes in, an unmistakably tortured wind instrument followed by the lightest of echoing drumbeats, and in a flash he knows what he’s gotten sucked into. “You’ve got to be joking!”

“Uh-oh,” Kili says. “Bilbo, get him!”

Thorin wonders who in the band discerned that the threat of physical interaction between Thorin and Bilbo would be enough to keep Thorin glued to the spot. He thinks it was probably Balin or Gandalf, but Bofur can’t be ruled out, either. “I’m not trying to escape,” he snaps. “I want to know why this is happening.”

“My online film studies class,” Kili says, and Thorin buries his head in his hands. Somehow he knew this was going to come back to bite him, but he had no idea how. “I’ve missed like all the assignments, but there’s a big paper at the end, and the professor said I could still pass if I did a good job. He assigned me a movie to analyze. This movie.”

Thorin thinks Kili’s professor sounds like a sadist. And he’s not the only one who thinks so. “Why didn’t you look it up on IMDb?” Bilbo asks. “They’ve got a synopsis. And trivia. And quotes.”

“I have to write about all of it,” Kili says. He seems surprisingly gung-ho about the whole thing. “Lighting, music, costumes, everything. Everybody else agreed to watch, too.”

“Out of solidarity,” Balin says.

“Solidarity,” Fili agrees, but he can’t resist taking a dig at his younger brother. “I told you not to take that class.”

“This is going to be more fun than the six weeks of stats homework you’re going to have to catch up on,” Kili points out, and Fili winces. “Now all of you shut up and watch.”

Thorin considers the situation as the movie winds through its interminable opening sequence. Is this better or worse than sitting upstairs in his room and letting his thoughts run away with him? Better, Thorin allows, but not by much.

Bilbo taps his shoulder, and Thorin looks up. Bilbo points at the screen. “Have you seen this before?

Thorin’s only seen _Titanic_ once. Fili was in Denver, ostensibly visiting Thorin but actually visiting his girlfriend, only for said girlfriend to unceremoniously dump him. While Fili was meeting her in a coffee shop to retrieve his things, Thorin ascertained which car was the girlfriend’s and let the air out of two of the four tires – not his proudest moment, but not one he’s necessarily ashamed of, either. Thorin asked Fili what would help, and Fili said that he wanted to eat a lot and cry. Thorin looked up ‘movies that will make you cry’, picked one at random, and went from there. He didn’t get much out of the experience, except that it’s awkward to watch straight sex scenes with his straight nephew who used to spit up on him as a baby.

“Yes,” he says. “Have you?”

Bilbo doesn’t answer. “Did you know,” he says, and Thorin has to hide a smile, “that Kate Winslet flashed Leonardo DiCaprio the first time they met on-set?”

“No,” Thorin says, honestly startled. “Why?”

“She read the script and knew they were going to have nude scenes,” Bilbo says. “She didn’t want it to be awkward.”

“That sounds more awkward, not less,” Thorin says.

“Quiet down, would you?” Dwalin says. “Some of us are trying to listen.”

“Put on the subtitles,” Bilbo says without even a glance in Dwalin’s direction. Then he turns his attention back to Thorin. “I thought so, too. Oh, and on the last night of location shooting, someone spiked the cast’s dinner with PCP.”

“What?” Thorin twists around to look at him. “Why do you know that?”

Bilbo shrugs. “I read it somewhere,” he says, and it all comes together for Thorin.

“You’ve never seen it,” he says, and Bilbo flushes. “You read the synopsis and the quotes and the trivia so you could pretend you had.”

“No,” Bilbo says unconvincingly. Bilbo really is a terrible liar.

Thorin is chuckling to himself. “And now you’re stuck watching it as much as I am.”

“It’s not funny. If I’m going to end up writing half of Kili’s paper, I need to watch the damn thing,” Bilbo says, but he doesn’t sound all that upset. “Shut up and eat your popcorn.”

Thorin does as he’s bid.

The movie has not aged well from the last time Thorin saw it, or maybe it’s Thorin who hasn’t aged well. It’s almost ridiculously cheesy, and Thorin’s blood pressure rises every time the main theme comes on, but he’s surprised to find that he’s having a good time. So, it seems, are the rest of the bandmembers. Midway through one of the endless first-class sequences, a discussion pops up surrounding which of the actresses is more attractive. As Thorin might have expected, it gets contentious quickly.

“Kate Winslet,” Kili says. “I don’t know why we’re even fighting about this. It’s the only answer.”

“Eh,” Balin says. “Too young for me.”

Gloin looks at him quizzically. “When the movie came out or now?”

“Both,” Balin says, and Dwalin snorts.

“You can fight over Kate Winslet,” he says, stealing a handful of popcorn from Nori. Nori slaps at his hand but misses. “Kathy Bates is the real deal.”

“Kathy Bates?” Bofur repeat, incredulous, and both Balin and Dwalin nod. He considers the idea for a moment, then drops it. “I’m more interested in the redhead.”

“Which redhead?” Fili says, puzzled. Then his jaw drops. “Wait, Kate Winslet’s mom? She looks like a raisin.”

“She does not!”

“Thorin,” Kili says loudly. Thorin cringes. “What do you think? Who’s your type?”

Thorin doesn’t really have a consistent type. It’s more accurate to say that he has one type at a time, and it stays his type until his type dumps him and he has to find a new one. Thorin’s current type, however, is sitting on the couch he’s leaning against and munching contentedly on popcorn. This is not a question that Thorin is currently equipped to answer without lying or embarrassing himself.

Balin seems to recognize this, and swoops in to the rescue. “Bilbo, what about you?”

“Hmm?” Bilbo looks up from his snacking. “Leonardo DiCaprio. Easy.”

“My man Bilbo knows what he wants! I like it,” Fili says. He looks speculatively at the screen. “If I were into dudes I’d go for him, too.”

Thorin was pretty sure Bilbo was gay before this moment, but it’s both a relief and not to have it confirmed. It’s a relief to know that he hasn’t been misreading this situation right from the get-go. It’s not at all a relief to know that Bilbo’s type is Leonardo DiCaprio, circa 1997. Luckily for Thorin, the who’s-your-type line of discussion devolves into the rest of the band’s musings about what would happen if they had to pick a guy. Thorin’s impressed with how not weird they are about it. There aren’t many straight men who’d describe 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio as having “the best ass on this side of the Atlantic” while completely sober.

Kili is alternating between eating popcorn and taking notes. He seems serious about his project. At one point, he demands that the movie be paused so he can write down something about the lighting, and everyone else takes the opportunity to stretch, seek more food, or fight over who gets to use the bathroom first. Thorin stands up. He’s one of the few people who still has popcorn left – he’s been pacing himself – and he takes it with him when he goes into the kitchen for water to protect it from everyone else.

Gandalf’s in the kitchen as well. He’s picked up an apple from a fruit bowl on the kitchen island and is studying it from all angles. He looks up when he sees Thorin come in. “Hello,” he says. “Are you having fun?”

“I don’t know if fun is the right word,” Thorin says.

“It means a lot to you to find the right word,” Gandalf observes.

“It should. I write songs for a living.” Thorin pokes around in the cupboards one-handed, looking for a glass.

“Wrong cupboard,” Gandalf says. He taps the correct one, and Thorin opens it – but in addition to a glass, he finds a stack of photographs, rubber-banded together. Thorin takes out both the glass and the photos. Gandalf sighs. “I was wondering where those went.”

Thorin had better not be holding a stack of Gandalf’s naked pictures. He slides the rubber band off and turns them over with some trepidation, but the photo on top isn’t of Gandalf at all. It’s of Bilbo, standing at the edge of a cliff with a canyon behind him and his arm around a red-haired man, smiling like Thorin’s never seen him smile before. The photo itself looks to have been taken from arm’s length. Thorin remembers Bilbo’s words about photos with his ex, two weeks ago: _I’m sure I still have some lying around_. That settles it, then. This is Bilbo’s house.

Thorin turns over the next photo, and the next after that. A few more shots with the ex-boyfriend, and then the tenor of the photos completely changes. Bilbo and two older people at a birthday party – Bilbo’s birthday party. Bilbo and those same people opening birthday presents. Those two people with their arms around him, Bilbo dressed in graduation regalia with a diploma tucked under his arm, years younger than he is now. Those people must be Bilbo’s parents. Bilbo looks a lot like his mother. But he has his father’s eyes.

Thorin looks up from the photos at Gandalf. “Why would he hide these?”

He already knows what answer he’s going to get, even before Gandalf opens his mouth. “You should ask Bilbo yourself.”

“Ask me what?”

Thorin startles and drops the photos, which would have been fine if he hadn’t removed the rubber band already. They scatter across the kitchen floor, and Thorin indulges in three or four of his favorite swear words as he drops to his knees to pick them up. It’s only when he’s gathered most of them that he looks up at Bilbo. Bilbo doesn’t look upset. He doesn’t look like anything at all, and that makes Thorin’s heart sink.

“Thorin wasn’t snooping,” Gandalf says, and Bilbo looks to him instead of Thorin. Thorin seizes the opportunity to get up. “He was only looking for a glass.”

“And I suppose you had nothing to do with it?” Bilbo sounds tired.

“I told him where the glasses were,” Gandalf says. He pats Bilbo on the shoulder, gives Thorin a significant look, and heads back into the other room.

Thorin holds out the photos. Bilbo doesn’t move to take them. It occurs to Thorin that he’s really screwed up – screwed up beyond fixing, maybe. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? For figuring out that this is my house?” Bilbo keeps his voice low. “For figuring out that those photos are of my parents and my ex? If I didn’t want someone to find them, I should have hidden them better.”

“Why did you hide them in the first place?” Thorin asks without thinking. Bilbo’s eyes widen, and Thorin backpedals as fast as humanly possible. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have –”

“My parents died a year and a half ago,” Bilbo says, and Thorin stops talking. “This was their house. I grew up here, and every time I turned a corner, I saw all the places where they weren’t, where they would never be again. I took down the photos before I moved to L.A..”

Thorin sets the photos aside on the kitchen counter. But that looks wrong; Bilbo’s treasured, painful memories next to Thorin’s empty glass and bowl of popcorn. He moves them a little farther away. It doesn’t help much, and it’s all just buying time so Thorin can figure out what to say to Bilbo, who’s standing there with a look on his face that breaks Thorin’s heart.

Thorin clears his throat. “What happened?”

“Car accident,” Bilbo says. His voice is flat. “My father died at the scene. My mother hung on for a few more days, but she was never going to wake up again, and her advance directive said I had to pull the plug. My boyfriend walked out three days before the funeral. He said he couldn’t handle it.”

Thorin would happily murder the ex-boyfriend if he thought he could get away with it, and maybe even if he couldn’t. He tries to keep it from showing up on his face. Bilbo manages a tight little smile. “Funny, isn’t it? My parents were dead, and _he_ couldn’t handle it. I moved to L.A. three weeks later. I haven’t been back – this is the first time I’ve been back – since I left.”

Thorin’s not good with comforting people. He’s not good with grief. He’s good at carrying his own, not at assuaging other people’s, and for someone who cares about the right words so much, not even the wrong words are coming to mind. Thorin doesn’t know what to say. But he thinks he knows what to do.

He wraps his arms around Bilbo and pulls him in tight against his chest. Bilbo freezes, shocked, and Thorin almost lets go of him on reflex. But then Bilbo’s arms come up and he’s hugging Thorin back, his head on Thorin’s shoulder. Thorin closes his eyes, and when he hears – no, feels – Bilbo’s breathing hitch, he settles one hand between Bilbo’s shoulder blades, fingers outstretched to steady him. This is the closest they’ve been, for the longest, and as much as Thorin might wish for different circumstances, he knows he’s done the right thing. Thorin can’t make up for what Bilbo’s been through in a single hug. But he hopes it helps a bit.

He lets go when he’s sure Bilbo is steady. Bilbo looks up at him, blinking rapidly. Now that Thorin knows what to look for, he sees the sadness sketched across Bilbo’s face – his mouth, his eyes, even the way he tilts his head to study Thorin. “You don’t have to finish the movie if you don’t want to,” Thorin says, because he’s not sure what else to say. “You already know how it ends.”

“Everyone and their dog knows how it ends,” Bilbo says. He squares his shoulders. “I’m staying.”

He picks up the photographs off the counter and tucks them out of sight into a different cupboard; then he goes to the sink and fills the water glass. Having something to do seems to bring Bilbo back to himself. Thorin grabs the popcorn bowl just so he’ll have something to do with his hands. “All right, then. Let’s get this over with.”

“Seconded,” Bilbo says. He hands Thorin the glass of water and relieves him of the popcorn bowl. “Oh, and Thorin?”

Bilbo could tell Thorin to tap-dance on the kitchen island while juggling eggs and Thorin would probably give it his best shot. “Yes?”

“Don’t sit on the floor.”

The back half of the movie is one heart-wrenching character death after another, and the band is far from immune. Gloin loses it first, at the scene of a mother trying to lull her children to sleep as water fills their room. To Thorin’s surprise, Gandalf goes down next, clearing his throat and grumbling over the elderly couple who would rather die together than live without each other. The string quartet gets at least half of them, and the other half go for their tissues as soon as the main characters hit the water. Thorin himself is fine. He keeps eating popcorn. He glances over at Bilbo, who’s finished off his own popcorn and is helping himself to Thorin’s one handful at a time. Bilbo seems fine, too.

Thorin is thinking that he’s made it through the movie without embarrassing himself when he remembers about the last scene. It wouldn’t have made much of an impact on him five years ago, but everything can and did change in those five years. Thorin’s eyes begin to burn and blur, so badly that he can’t see the screen, but even when he closes them, he’s watching his own version of it play out in his mind’s eye. Going home, back to the house Thorin grew up in. The one that’s not there anymore. Stepping through the front door and turning left into the living room and seeing Thror and Thrain there, eyes bright and alive with memory. Seeing them hold out their arms to him, everything forgiven but not forgotten between the three of them.

He imagines his father’s voice. It’s been three years since he heard it. _Welcome home, Thorin_.

Thorin can try to hold back his tears or control his breathing. He can’t do both at once, and he doesn’t want anyone to see – least of all Bilbo, who lost his parents in a tragedy that wasn’t the slightest bit of his own making. Thorin clenches his right hand into a fist and digs his nails into his palm, trying to distract himself from the larger grief with a smaller wound. It doesn’t work. It never works, not when it comes to this.

Thorin feels Bilbo’s hand on his. Bilbo uncurls Thorin’s fingers carefully, one at a time. Bilbo’s palm rests against the back of Thorin’s hand; his fingers wrap around Thorin’s palm. Thorin looks at him, shocked and far more unsteady than he’d like to be, and Bilbo tightens his grip on Thorin’s hand. When Thorin’s eyes meet his, Bilbo nods once. For the life of him Thorin can’t figure out what it means. Is it a simple acknowledgment that Thorin’s in pain? Is Bilbo uncomfortable with what happened earlier, and trying to make them even? Does it even matter why?

Thorin decides that it doesn’t. He didn’t cry, but he wipes at his eyes with the heel of his left hand just to be certain, trying to be subtle about it, and focuses back on the screen for appearance’s sake. Thorin lets Bilbo keep his hand for as long as he wants, until the credits roll and the stupid theme song starts playing and Nori starts declaring that they need to watch something else or they’re all going to cry themselves to sleep. Bilbo lets go eventually, but as he pulls away his thumb skids over Thorin’s knuckles. His fingers aren’t callused like Thorin’s are. They’re soft, and gentle, even when the motion he’s making is an accident.

Thorin keeps dragging his thumb over his knuckles for the rest of the second movie. But it never feels quite the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and a special thank-you to LostGryphin, adiaphora, Eldikar_The_Magificent, and this_fish for the comments and feedback! It means a lot.
> 
> New chapters will go up every Friday.


	9. Chapter 9

The kitchen smells like coffee and burnt toast, but Thorin’s used to that. He sits at the kitchen table, working on a crossword puzzle and running over last night’s show in his head, looking for any spots that could be improved, any transitions between songs that could be worked with to make them more seamless. The Lonely Mountains haven’t always been the most polished in terms of appearance, load-in, equipment that works or buses that don’t try to kill people. But their performances have always been professional. Thorin makes sure of it.

The band doesn’t have all that many early risers. It’s Thorin, Gandalf, and Balin. Today Gloin is up early, too, because he’s Skyping with his wife and son before she goes to work and he to school. And of course, there’s Bilbo, who’s always up first no matter how late they were awake the night before. Bilbo sits on the other side of the kitchen table from Thorin, his laptop open, looking intently at something on the screen. Thorin keeps his eyes on his puzzle – for the most part.

“Did you see this?” Bilbo asks after a moment, of no one in particular. “Lasgalen’s back on the charts.”

“Lasgalen?” Thorin looks up. “Really? Did their trademark expire?”

“What’s Lasgalen?” Kili asks. He wanders into the kitchen, still in pajamas and yawning so often that it’s hard to understand what he’s saying.

“It was – is – a band,” Balin explains. “Very, very popular a little while back.”

“Oh,” Kili says. “Did they break up?”

“No,” Bilbo says. He pauses. “It was tragic, really. The original Lasgalen was three members – Oropher, who started it, and then his son Thranduil and Thranduil’s wife Rirosseth. There was…”

Bilbo trails off, and Thorin knows why. He picks up the story quickly. “There was a car accident. Oropher and Rirosseth were both killed, and Thranduil was badly injured. His son Legolas was the only one who made it out unhurt.”

“So the band didn’t break up,” Kili concludes. “That sucks.”

Nods all around the table. Thorin turns his attention back to Bilbo. “What are they doing back on the charts?”

“Hold on,” Bilbo says. He’s looking at his phone screen, then back at his laptop, then back to the phone. Thorin has no idea how he does it without getting a headache. “They didn’t lose their trademark – it looks like Thranduil’s reformed the band. Legolas is on drums, and they’ve brought in someone else on second guitar and female vocals.”

“Who?” Gandalf asks. “Do I know her?”

“Hmm.” Bilbo scrolls. “No, doesn’t look like it. As far as I can tell, she graduated from Berklee and sang with the Met for a little while before she hooked up with the other two.”

“Great,” Thorin mutters. “Another opera singer.”

Kili stares at him. “What do you mean, another one? What kind of band is this?”

“The kind you don’t want coming after your position on the charts,” Bilbo says ominously. He’s frowning at his laptop again, a line drawn between his brows. Thorin thinks about smoothing it out with the tips of his fingers, and the thought sets his head swimming pleasantly for a second or two before he makes himself focus again. “Thranduil is a classically trained tenor – he sang in some of the best opera houses in the world before he joined his father’s band. Enormous vocal range, speaks four different languages, can sing in seven.”

“Oh.” Kili sits down at the kitchen table, in the one remaining chair – Gandalf prefers to lurk in the kitchen proper. “He sounds scary.”

“You’ve met him before, although you might have been too young to remember,” Thorin says. “It would have been fourteen years or so ago, but after the accident, we all went to the funeral.”

Thorin hopes Kili doesn’t remember. It’s not a good memory. Even before Smaug and all that came afterward, Thror was not a generous or even a very kind man. His disdain for Lasgalen was well-known – anyone who kept knocking Thror’s artists out of first position on the charts was not someone who was spoken fondly of at family dinners – but Thorin always thought it was a professional sort of disdain. He didn’t find out that it was personal until they got to the funeral.

Thranduil and Legolas were all that was left of their family. The others were gone. And in came Thror, with his son, his granddaughter and her husband and her two sons, his grandson. Far too many people to bring to a funeral, when even one of them would have been enough to represent the family and pay their respects. Thorin saw the glint in Thror’s eyes and realized that he’d done it on purpose. He brought his whole family to one-up Thranduil, to throw his family’s good fortune in Thranduil’s face at a funeral.

Thorin hadn’t come out to his family yet, but he already knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Thror’s scorn. When his family went up to greet Thranduil and Legolas, Thorin hung back, and later, he went up on his own. Legolas, three years younger than Thorin, was in tears on and off, refusing to move farther than five feet from his mother’s casket. The left side of Thranduil’s face was still bandaged. He looked up when Thorin approached.

“I’m afraid there’s no need,” he said coldly. Thorin didn’t blame him for that. “Your grandfather has already paid his respects, such as they were.”

“I’m not my grandfather,” Thorin said. It was very important to him that Thranduil and Legolas understood this; that if Thorin had his way, the whole family wouldn’t have shown up. “And I’m sorry for your loss.”

Thorin kept it simple – he did what he thought his grandfather should have done, and got out of there. He felt too bad for the two of them to do anything else.

“Wait, if he went out of action fourteen years ago, he must be ancient,” Kili says. He picks up a banana out of the fruit bowl, peels it partway, and stuffs half of it into his mouth. His voice is muffled. “Why are we worried about an old man?”

Gandalf clears his throat. Loudly. “We aren’t worried about him,” Balin says. “It’s just interesting, is all. Them resurfacing now.”

“Someone told me once that interesting is a stand-in for bad,” Thorin says. Bilbo doesn’t look up from his computer, but Thorin sees his lips curve upward at the corners. “Don’t think about them too much, Kili. We’re in completely different genres. Besides, Thranduil’s been out of the industry for a long time.”

“People with classical training are scary,” Kili says.

“Tell me about it,” Bilbo mutters.

Gloin steps into the kitchen, still holding his phone. “See, this is where we eat,” he’s saying. “And here’s Gandalf and Balin and Kili and Thorin.”

Balin and Kili both wave at the camera. Balin steps on Thorin’s foot until Thorin waves, too. Gloin nods at this and keeps moving. “Who’s that?” Gimli, Gloin’s son asks. Thorin doesn’t need to ask who he’s pointing at.

“That’s Bilbo. Bilbo’s our agent,” Gloin explains.

“Is an agent like a librarian?” Gimli asks.

“No,” Gloin says. He shoots an apologetic glance at Bilbo, grabs a donut out of a box on top of the refrigerator, and makes his way out of the room.

Bilbo’s phone rings. He gets a new ringtone every couple of days, mostly because Fili and Kili keep changing it when he gives them the phone so they can approve his social media posts. Today’s ringtone is Hips Don’t Lie, by Shakira. Kili smirks when he hears it. Thorin kicks him under the table.

Bilbo stands up abruptly. “Excuse me,” he says. “I have to take this.”

Instead of moving further into the house, he opens the kitchen door and steps out into the backyard, letting it swing shut behind him. A blast of cold, damp air sweeps in before the door closes all the way. Kili shivers. “Coffee. I need coffee.”

“You’re up early this morning,” Balin remarks. “What gives?”

“Fili’s video chatting with some girl he met on Tinder,” Kili mutters. “I couldn’t sleep.”

This isn’t the first complaint Thorin’s heard about Fili, girls, or Tinder since they arrived in Seattle. In fact, it’s probably closer to the fiftieth. “Look, why don’t you just make your own Tinder account?”

“I don’t want to,” Kili says. He scowls, then yawns, the second expression ruining any impact the first might have had. “It’s so clinical. Like, imagine what Fili’s going to say when his kids ask him and his wife how they met?”

He imitates his older brother, deepening his voice and squaring up his shoulders. “Well, son slash daughter, I was scrolling through a hookup app for horny people and I spotted your mom. _Now_, I said to myself, _she’s hot as hell_. So I swiped right and we had sex on the first date and now you’re here.”

Thorin has a hard time pretending not to laugh. Balin doesn’t even pretend. Kili gestures at them. “See what I mean? It sounds ridiculous. It’s not romantic at all.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you for a romantic, Kili,” Gandalf says.

“I’m not,” Kili says. “It’s just, like – when I meet _the_ girl, I want it to be like, life-changing. Like in Thorin’s song.”

Everyone’s looking at Thorin now. Thorin focuses on his puzzle. He’s stuck on 39-Down – eight letters, _significant token_. “Yes, Thorin’s song,” Gandalf says. “I wonder when you all will be performing Thorin’s song.”

“It’s not ready yet,” Thorin growls. He’s fed at least three other songs into the pipeline, arrangements and all, and all three of those have made it into their regular set lists. And yet everyone insists on talking about _that_ song. “Whenever you’re ready to put Tequila Nightmare on stage, Kili, let’s go.”

“I’m working on a new one,” Kili says. He spreads his hands out, as though imagining the title in marquee lights. “Tequila Halloween.”

“You can’t just keep putting tequila in front of random words and calling it a song title,” Thorin says. He’s already getting about four or five tequila songs a week stuffed under his bedroom door. At this point he’s questioning whether Kili and Fili are serious or just attempting to screw with him.

“Yeah, well, not all of us can write powerhouse songs,” Kili says, “but some of us can at least name ours.”

“He does have a point,” Balin says. “You haven’t named your solo or the new song, and we can’t put either of them up on Spotify until you do. We can help if you want. What have you been thinking of?”

“Eight letters, significant token,” Thorin says, fed up with both the crossword puzzle and the conversation.

The kitchen door bangs open. “The word you’re looking for is _talisman_,” Bilbo says. He looks like he’s gotten rained on, but his phone is clenched in his hand and he’s bouncing from foot to foot. “Change of plans. Tonight’s not a night off any longer.”

“Why not?” Gandalf asks. He approaches from the kitchen. “What did you do, Bilbo Baggins?”

“Hang on, I need tonight off!” Fili has made it down the stairs without being noticed, and he joins the group, invading Kili’s personal space with little concern. “I have a date!”

“You have a hookup,” Kili grouses. “It’s not a date unless you like her.”

“I don’t know if I like her yet!”

“No more!” Thorin raises his voice ever so slightly, and they all fall silent. Thorin nods at Bilbo. “Go ahead.”

Bilbo’s cheeks are pink. “A band that’s playing at the Showbox tonight just lost their opening act – family emergency, they said. They need someone to fill in on short notice. Well, to be specific, they need The Lonely Mountains to fill in on short notice.”

Fili whips out his phone and starts typing away furiously. Thorin ignores him. “How did you find out about this? How did you convince them?”

“I didn’t, actually,” Bilbo says. “They called me. They knew we were in town, and they said that if you didn’t have a booking already tonight, they wanted you to play.”

“Holy shit,” Fili says from behind Thorin. “This Showbox place seats eleven hundred people!”

“The show is sold out,” Bilbo adds quietly. He’s looking at Thorin. It seems almost like he’s letting Thorin catch him looking. “I told them to give me five minutes and I’d have an answer for them. We’re at two and a half now.”

Everyone around the table looks at Thorin. “Call them back,” Thorin says. “Tell them yes.”

Bilbo nods, opens the kitchen door, and goes into the backyard again. Silence descends. Thorin looks at Kili. His youngest nephew seems a little green around the gills, and he’s not shy about admitting it. “A thousand seats? That’s the biggest venue we’ve ever played.”

“Eleven hundred seats,” Fili corrects him cheerfully. “It’s going to be great.”

“Not if we blow it!”

“We’re not going to blow it,” Balin says, aiming a look at Thorin. Thorin raises his eyebrows. He’s not sure what he did to deserve that expression. “This is a great opportunity. Who are we opening for?”

The kitchen door opens again. “The Indigo Girls,” Bilbo says. “I’ve just been on the phone with their tour manager. We need to be there at four to load in, and sound-check is at four-thirty. You go on at seven with a thirty minute set, and you’re supposed to back the headliners on their last song and their encore.”

Thorin spots a problem with that almost immediately. “We don’t know those songs.”

“You’ve got a lot to do today. That’s part of it,” Bilbo says. “They’re also giving us a table to sell merchandise.”

“Merchandise?” Thorin has never thought about that in the context of the band. He’s never had to. “What kind of merchandise?”

“T-shirts, CDs, that sort of thing,” Gandalf puts in helpfully.

“We don’t have any of that,” Thorin says. Merchandise and performing with headliners and venues with over a thousand seats – his heart starts to sink a little bit. Good news, unambiguously good news, and Thorin can’t even enjoy it properly.

“I can fix that,” Kili says. Everyone turns to look at him, and he clarifies. “The shirts, at least. I’m the one who made the logo. Get me a bunch of t-shirts and a can of blue spray paint and we’ll be good to go.”

“Excellent,” Bilbo says. “Kili, you and Fili and Ori will work on shirts. Gandalf, can you go find the things they’ll need?”

Gandalf is up and out the door before Thorin can even think it through. Meanwhile, Bilbo is walking back and forth across the kitchen, gesturing with both hands, including the one that’s holding his phone. “Next, CDs. How many of you have laptops with disk drives?”

Balin does; so does Thorin, but that’s only because Thorin’s laptop is older than dirt. It’s not a particularly good showing, but Bilbo doesn’t seem concerned at all. “I’ll handle cover art and liner notes. I want both of you to burn at least two dozen CDs, and the home computer will take care of the rest.”

“What songs?” Thorin asks. He’s a little dazed by how quickly they’ve gone from playing in Midwestern dive bars to playing venues in Seattle with over a thousand seats, opening for a band that’s managed to sell out every last one of those seats. They don’t have t-shirts. They don’t even have CDs, for Durin’s sake. They aren’t ready for this.

“Suckerpunch, Jolene, Born to Run, and your solo song,” Bilbo says, as though he’s been compiling the perfect LP in his head for just this situation. “You’ve got until I print the backing sheets to come up with a title for it.”

Balin looks at Thorin, sees that Thorin is somewhat incapacitated, and takes up the questioning. “A title for the solo song, or the LP?”

“Both,” Bilbo says.

Thorin grabs his coffee cup and drains it. Unfortunately it’s cold, and also full of caffeine, two things that are not going to help Thorin’s situation in the slightest. Bilbo seems oblivious to his consternation. “I’ll need someone to scout the venue – do you think Dwalin will be able to do that without killing any of the headliners’ roadies?”

“I’m certain of it,” Balin says. “I’ll go wake him.”

Kili rockets out of his seat. “I’ll go wake the others! We need all hands on deck.”

Bilbo nods, and Kili hurries off. Fili, meanwhile, stays in his seat, still poking at his phone. A moment later, Kili comes back, grabs Fili’s arm, and tows him off up the stairs, leaving Bilbo and Thorin in the kitchen. Alone.

Bilbo studies Thorin. Thorin pinches the bridge of his nose and avoids Bilbo’s gaze for a few moments until he can’t keep at it without seeming rude. He makes eye contact, takes a deep breath, and that’s when Bilbo speaks. “Are you all right? You seem a little –”

“Panicked?”

“I was going to say shell-shocked,” Bilbo says. He sits down at the table, not across from Thorin like he was before, but next to him in the seat Kili recently vacated. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“We aren’t ready,” Thorin blurts out. He can hear footsteps up and down the upstairs halls, but no one’s made a break for the stairs yet. He gives it five minutes. Five more minutes where he can say what he’s really thinking. “It’s too much, too soon, and we’re going to screw it up and be right back where we started.”

“I can’t break your contract from my side,” Bilbo reminds him – gently? “The company’s not going to dump the band. I’m not going to dump you, either.”

Thorin drags his hand down his face. “That’s not a promise you can keep.”

“For the next two years it is.”

Bilbo’s eyes are steady on Thorin’s, and once again, Thorin realizes he’s not sure what they’re talking about any longer. He tries to put them back on topic. “How many times have you given the talent a pep talk right before their big break?”

“The band trusts you, Thorin,” Bilbo says. “I trust you. This is something you’re capable of.”

How is Thorin going to explain to him that he’s not just afraid that he can’t do it; he’s afraid that he can, and it won’t be enough? Even if they succeed, Smaug is still out there, and Thorin’s not stupid enough to think he’s gone quiet for good. But even if he has, even if everything Thorin’s ever dreamed of comes true, there’s still the deadline etched into his skull. There’s still the slow-creeping nightmare that consumed his grandfather, that his father fled from in terror. Thorin could get everything he’s ever wanted in this moment, and a year from now he might not even remember it.

Part of him knows it doesn’t happen that fast. But another part of him wonders if he’d notice it happening at all.

“Thorin,” Bilbo says. Thorin is so busy trying to stuff all those thoughts back in the box where they belong that he doesn’t see Bilbo’s hand until it settles on his forehead, smoothing out the line of tension between his eyes. Then it’s an effort not to go cross-eyed trying to look at it. “What’s going on up there?”

Thorin almost tells him. Everything, all of it: _I’m afraid of what’s going to happen, good or bad; I’m afraid of turning out like my father, like my grandfather; I’m afraid of not living long enough to be as happy as my sister is; I’m afraid I won’t be myself by the end_. Bilbo’s fingers drift down Thorin’s face, down the slope of his nose until his fingertips rest lightly against Thorin’s lips.

It’s the smallest of touches, and yet it wipes every other thought out of Thorin’s head. He meets Bilbo’s eyes. Bilbo rubs the back of his neck, a nervous gesture if Thorin’s ever seen one, but none of it comes out when he speaks. “Thorin,” he says, and Thorin thinks he’ll never grow tired of the way his name sounds in Bilbo’s voice, “I –”

That’s when they both hear footsteps coming down the stairs.

Thorin moves fast. He catches Bilbo’s hand at the wrist before Bilbo can pull it away and he presses his lips against Bilbo’s fingertips. It’s not a kiss, not quite – but based on the way Bilbo’s cheeks redden, the distinction is purely academic. Thorin lets go of his wrist, Bilbo lets his hand fall, and by the time the rest of the band comes trooping into the kitchen, they’re both back at work – Bilbo on his laptop, Thorin with his crossword puzzle. Bilbo was right about 39-Down. It fits perfectly.

* * *

Thorin winds up doing a little bit of everything. He burns CDs from his laptop. He practices the headliner’s closing and encore songs whenever he finds three or more bandmembers with time on their hands. Thorin spray-paints t-shirts with Kili and the others, then winds up blow-drying them, washing them, and blow-drying them again just to get rid of the paint smell. When he’s not doing that, he’s trying to plot the set list for the biggest show of his life.

“Are you going to put the song in?” Dwalin asks, in a tone that suggest his next words should Thorin fail to do so will be, _You coward_.

Balin is more directive. “Put the song in.”

“What song?” Bilbo asks.

Thorin loses patience with the whole thing and pencils the song in, under the title he’s come up with. It’s not the most inspired title, but it’s not like anyone else is going to be looking at the set list other than him. He turns the piece of paper over. “Set list is done. What’s next?”

Bilbo has constructed an elaborate checklist for all the things they have to accomplish today, complete with time deadlines for when they must be completed. Slowly but surely they’re making their way through the list. Dwalin came back with information on the venue, which made Thorin feel a little better; then he looked up pictures of the interior online, which made him feel worse. Thorin can handle this only if he’s not thinking about the sheer size of the audience they’ll be playing for. He remembers telling Bilbo that he stops thinking about the audience the moment he steps onstage. He guesses he’ll find out tonight if that’s true.

Bilbo checks the appropriate box. Certain bandmembers have individual lists; Thorin does. So far he’s checked off ‘burn CDs’, ‘practice IG songs’, ‘make t-shirts for ½ hour’, and ‘set list’. ‘Bilbo points at the next three items. “I have to start printing the liner notes soon or we won’t be out the door by eleven-thirty. I need names. One for the solo song, and one for the LP.”

Thorin makes one last attempt to get out of his responsibilities. “Can’t someone else do that?”

“No,” Bilbo says. He spins the marker between his fingers. “Just pick whatever comes into your head.”

The LP seems easier to name than the song, if only because it’s less specific, less tied to time and place. Two of the songs aren’t even his. Thorin runs possibility after possibility through his head. The obvious move would be to name the LP after the band, but Thorin thinks they should save it for their first album. Their first album. That’s something Thorin never expected to be thinking about. In fact, if he went back in time to the morning before the Minnesota show and told himself what was coming, he’s certain his barely-younger self would tell him to go to hell.

“You look stuck,” Bilbo observes. He sits down in the same chair as before, but there’s too much activity surrounding them for Thorin to hope for a repeat of earlier. It was such a small thing, and thinking of it burns Thorin up inside. “Can you think of any common themes between the songs?”

“Three out of the four are about fighting,” Thorin says. “In one way or another.”

“Mm. I’d say four out of four,” Bilbo says. “Jolene and your solo are about a different kind of fighting than the first two. But it’s still the same underneath. It’s about going after what you want, even if all you want is to keep putting one foot over the other. Sometimes even that’s a fight.”

Thorin can’t tell if Bilbo’s perceptive enough to draw these conclusions on his own or if he can just see straight into Thorin’s head. He tries for levity. “I should write fewer songs about getting the shit kicked out of me.”

“Those are good songs,” Bilbo says, “and they’re not inelegant. They’re very precise. In the kind of fights you write about, there’s no room for mistakes”

That reminds Thorin of something he heard Kili say once about fighting onstage in plays. He can’t remember precisely what. He tries not to let that shake him. “What’s it called in theatre when they plan the fights out?”

“Fight choreography,” Bilbo says. He and Thorin make eye contact, and Thorin feels the rush of a problem solved – and the different but equally intense rush of looking at someone you want who might not want you. “Is that what you want to go with?”

“I think so,” Thorin says. “For the LP.”

“I like it,” Bilbo says. He types something on his computer, then turns the screen for Thorin to see. “This is the front cover.”

The front cover is an image of all of them in Glacier National Park, sitting at the overlook on the top of the trail. It looks to Thorin like a screen grab from the Jolene video. The entire band is intent on playing, and so is Thorin, but the wind is lifting the ends of his hair and instead of looking at the others, he’s looking down at his fingers on the chords. Across the top, Bilbo’s typed a scrawling font: FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY. A few clicks and he tilts the lettering, turning it sideways across the cover image like an autograph.

Bilbo glances at Thorin. “What do you think?”

Thorin nods. Bands worse than his release albums and LPs all the time, but Thorin’s never gone for it. Going for it turns out to be simpler than he thought it would be. “It looks good.”

“Good,” Bilbo says. He clicks through, closing one document and opening another. “Now I just need the name of the song.”

“Just call it Trouble,” Thorin says. It fits, at least. Bilbo types it in without comment, saves the document, and hits print on one after the other. Somewhere else in the house, the printer starts whirring.

Bilbo stands up and checks two more items off Thorin’s list. In fact, Thorin’s personal list is complete – but just below it is another check box, labeled ‘m-o’, with ‘all’ written in parentheses after it. “What’s that last one?”

“Nothing,” Bilbo says. “Go paint some more t-shirts, and try not to inhale the fumes. I’ve had to make Ori sit out twice already.”

Thorin nods. He leaves the set list on the table next to the pile of burned CDs and goes into the backyard with Kili and the others.

The last hour and a half before they leave is nothing short of a nightmare, although that’s to be expected with fifteen people who all want to shower. Bilbo looks frustrated. “I knew I should have scheduled this in.”

“We can’t do anything about it now,” Thorin says. “Besides, Kili and Fili are helping.”

Bilbo snorts, which feels to Thorin like a pleasant punch in the gut. “I’m not sure that counts.”

Fili and Kili have given everyone seven minutes each per shower – there are four showers in the house, including the one in Thorin’s room – and they’re making their way between the bathrooms with a bucket of cold, wet sponges in tow. Thorin gathers that their plan is to throw the wet sponges into the showers on top of whoever’s taking too long. So far, there’s only been one victim; Dwalin, who climbed out of the shower just to chase Fili and Kili down the hall.

Kili pops out of one of the bathrooms. “This one’s clear! Bilbo, I’m tagging you in.”

“I already showered,” Bilbo protests.

“Yeah, but you smell like paint now,” Kili says. “We all do. Shower.”

Bilbo looks over at Thorin. Thorin shrugs. Bilbo rolls his eyes and ducks into the bathroom. A moment later, Fili appears from Thorin’s room, shooing Nori out in a towel. “Uncle Thorin, you’re up!”

“Who’s left?” Thorin asks as he heads down the hall.

“Just you two.”

“What time is it?”

“Eleven-fifteen.”

Thorin takes the fastest shower of his life – barring only one, in a truck-stop shower that was infested with spiders. Then he gets dressed at top speed, grabs his backpack and his guitar, and bolts downstairs. He beats Bilbo there by about thirty seconds, and somehow, in spite of the chaos, all of them make it onto the bus by eleven-thirty.

Bofur replaced the bus’s brake lines the third day in Seattle, but Thorin still gets nervous every time they come to a stop. The band is beginning to get restless. “Why’d we have to leave so early?” Dori asks. “We don’t have to be at the venue for another four hours.”

“We’ve got one more errand to run,” Bilbo says. “It might take a little while.”

“What is this errand, anyway?” Oin shouts from a seat three rows behind Bilbo. Bilbo winces.

“Kili knows,” he says in answer. “Why don’t you ask him what m-o stands for?”

“Modus operandi,” Thorin says.

Bilbo gives him a look. “No.”

Oin shouts the same question at Kili, who’s quiet for a long moment. Then he pops up in his seat, ecstatic. “Makeover! We’re getting makeovers!”

Thorin turns to Bilbo. “We’re doing what?”

“It’s not that the lot of you don’t look good all the time,” Bilbo says. “It’s just that you’re on a much bigger stage, farther from the audience. You need to stand out even more.”

Eleven pairs of incredulous eyes watch Bilbo over the seats. “It’s not going to be anything drastic,” Bilbo says. “Like your usual styles, just – just turned up a bit.”

“So I can’t dye my hair green?” Kili says.

“We’ll talk,” Bilbo says, “but no.”

This doesn’t seem to dampen Kili’s enthusiasm in the slightest. Thorin, meanwhile, is getting nervous again. He doesn’t do anything to his appearance except braid his hair back and keep his beard short. And the clothes he wears when he’s performing aren’t all that much different than the clothes he wears on the street. What on earth does Bilbo have planned for him?

Bilbo takes them into a mall, up an escalator, and into the largest department store Thorin has ever seen. Then he stands there for a moment, sizing up the salespeople, while Kili sneaks into the women’s clothing section to pet the sweaters. When the amount of weird looks he’s getting hits critical mass, Thorin retrieves him. “Why do you have to do that?”

“They’re softer than the men’s sweaters,” Kili protests. “What’s Bilbo doing?”

Bilbo has bypassed the smiling, attentive salespeople. Instead he’s talking intently to the one who looks the most uninterested, a girl who’s probably around Kili’s age and a clear two inches taller than Bilbo. They seem to reach some kind of agreement, and then Bilbo returns with the salesgirl. She looks the thirteen of them up and down. “I see what you mean,” she says. What does Bilbo mean? What did he say? “We can definitely work with this. Follow me.”

Thorin keeps an eye on Kili as they work their way back through the store, in case his youngest nephew tries to make a run for it again. They reach a bank of dressing rooms. The salesgirl plucks a whiteboard off the door of one of them, writes ‘occupied’ in capital letters, and props it up on a chair just outside the dressing rooms.

Bilbo addresses them. “Pick a dressing room and try on whatever I tell you to try on. This might be fun if you let it.”

“I know it’s going to be fun,” Kili says. He’s partially undressed already, and peering over the top of his dressing room door.

“You’re not going to take our old clothes, are you?” Nori asks.

“No, I’m not taking your clothes,” Bilbo says, exasperated. “Just trust me.”

“Trust you?” Dwalin demands. “If you dress me up like some two-bit, shoeshined little boy-band creep –”

“Dwalin,” Thorin says, and Dwalin falls silent. “Let’s get this over with.”

Clothes start being flung over the tops of the dressing room doors at alarming speed. “If something doesn’t fit, throw it back,” the salesgirl orders. “We’re working on a schedule here.”

Any time they can put a complete outfit together, they’re supposed to come out and show it to Bilbo, Gandalf, and the salesgirl. Interestingly enough, Bombur is the first among them to get his look approved. Thorin gets stuck in at least one shirt and has to wrestle himself out of it; he’s not about to go back out there and ask for help. He gets a pair of black jeans and a dark blue shirt, decides that this is as close to a complete outfit as he’s going to get, and comes out of the dressing room.

Bilbo, Gandalf, and the salesgirl all study him. Thorin sees Bilbo gulp. The salesgirl speaks first. “You’re almost good to go,” she says. “You need a jacket.”

“Yes,” Bilbo says. He jumps up from his seat. “Jacket. I will go find a jacket.”

He hurries off before either Gandalf or the salesgirl can stop him. They exchange a glance once he’s gone. That was odd, the glance seems to say. Thorin clears his throat. “Can I go?”

“Which one are you?” The salesgirl asks.

“Thorin.”

“Oh,” the salesgirl says. She and Gandalf exchange a second glance, more knowing this time than anything else. “Okay, Thorin. Go sit down.”

Thorin does so, joining Bombur, Kili, Nori, and Bifur, all of whom have been cleared. Thorin keeps waiting for Bilbo to come back, but it’s a long time before he does. In the mean time, Thorin observes the most ridiculous fashion show he’s ever seen. Fili comes out in a shirt he put on backwards; Bofur emerges wearing a plaid skirt that he seems to have decided is a kilt; Ori’s wearing five different belts and is loath to take any of them off. Thorin can see the theme Gandalf and Bilbo are going for. Lots of grey and black and blue, subtly matching the band’s logo. At least, Thorin hopes it’s subtle.

Thorin sidles closer to Gandalf. “How are we paying for this?”

“Half is out of your tips. You’ve been making a lot of tips lately,” Gandalf says. “The other half is the –”

“Discretionary fund,” Thorin says. Gandalf nods. “Do you think we’re doing the right thing?”

“I think it’s always wise to seize an opportunity that presents itself,” Gandalf says airily. “Ah, Dwalin! Come sit down.”

Dwalin slumps down into one of the chairs. “By Durin, that was awful.”

“Yeah,” Kili says, sprawling out in his own chair. “We’re all gonna get arrested when we come out of here.”

Thorin hopes Kili is making a joke, and not admitting that he stole one of the sweaters he was petting earlier. “What do you mean?”

“Because,” Kili says, smirking, “it’s gotta be a crime to look this good.”

Dwalin groans. “Who told you that you were funny?”

“Your mom,” Kili says. Dwalin takes a swing at him. Kili ducks.

Thorin checks the clock on the dressing room wall. It’s almost three. They’ve got an hour to finish this and get to the venue to start loading in. The remaining bandmembers seem to sense a time crunch on the horizon – the clothes they come out in are much more appropriate than their previous attempts – to the point that when Bilbo returns with an armful of jackets, the others are done.

Bilbo throws half the jackets at Thorin and half at Gandalf. “Thorin, you try these on. Gandalf, help me.”

Thorin thinks about going back into the dressing room to complete his assignment, then remembers they’re on a time crunch and just starts putting them on and taking them off. All of the jackets Bilbo picks have enough room in the shoulders to allow movement, and more importantly, guitar playing. Thorin takes a moment to appreciate how thorough Bilbo is in between shoving his arms into jacket sleeves and yanking them out again. The rest of the band watches and offers feedback – some of it helpful, most of it not.

“You could flash someone in that,” Kili muses about a long, charcoal grey coat. “It would just be like, whoa, there it is!”

He mimics whipping open the coat. “I’m not flashing anyone,” Thorin says. He looks at Gandalf. “Yes or no?”

“No,” Gandalf says absently. “Next one.”

The salesgirl seems very entertained by the whole thing, as does the band; Thorin just wants it to be over. He keeps looking at the clock, and he’s not the only one – Bilbo is doing the same, when he’s not avoiding looking at Thorin. Finally, Thorin runs out of his half of the jackets, shrugs off the last remaining one – brown, short, not particularly comfortable. He turns to the others. “Now what?”

Gandalf and Bilbo have their backs to him. “Yes or no?” he hears Bilbo say.

“Get the others,” Gandalf says, and as one, the rest of the band rises and hurries to surround the two of them. Thorin stands there, and as he’s standing there staring at the back of Bilbo’s head he realizes that Bilbo left the house with wet hair, same as Thorin – and Bilbo’s hair doesn’t look any different than it normally does. Thorin always imagined Bilbo fussing over his hair, arranging it into an artfully tousled mess of almost-curls. But if this is what his hair looks like when he’s had no time to do anything to it – it’s not a style. It’s just the way it is.

Thorin’s heart lurches. He tries to get himself under control, and mostly manages it by the time the others turn to face him. Another jacket hits him in the chest. “Last one,” Gandalf says. Thorin looks at him, and Gandalf prompts, “Go on, then.”

Thorin puts on the jacket without looking at it and turns to face the others. “So? Can we leave?”

“Almost,” Balin says. “Turn around.”

Thorin turns around and catches sight of himself in the mirror. This last jacket is plain black leather, shorter than the grey one and longer than the brown one, cut loose across the shoulders. It fits in the arms, too – it’s not going to pull when he’s playing. Best of all, it’s light. Some of the other jackets Bilbo tried to put him in would have cooked him under the stage lights. Thorin crosses his arms over his chest. He takes it as a good sign when the leather doesn’t squeak.

He turns to face the others, eyebrows raised. Gandalf is smiling. The others are grinning. And Bilbo’s face is bright red, which means that Thorin’s getting this jacket even if the others hate it. Kili wolf-whistles. “Yes! Looking good! Not quite as good as me, but still good!”

The salesgirl still lurks in the doorway. “My work here is done.”

“Yes. Yes it is,” Bilbo says, still red in the face. “Thanks for your help. I’ll see you at the register. The rest of you, get changed and let’s go. You’re not loading in wearing your performance clothes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and a special thank you to Arrowsboi, Raven484, and LostGryphin for the comments. I'm always thankful to hear your thoughts!


	10. Chapter 10

Load-in – check. Sound check – check. Sound check with the headlining band – also check, and Thorin really hopes he didn’t make an idiot of himself talking to them. Setting up the merchandise table and forcing Gandalf to man it – check. Thorin had to stop himself from sniffing one of the t-shirts to make sure it doesn’t smell like paint. Instruments tuned – check. Set list taped to the stage – also check. Now it’s six forty-five and The Lonely Mountains are lurking backstage, listening to the sound of a very big crowd taking their seats and trying to control their nerves. Some of them are doing better than others.

Bombur pats Bofur’s shoulder as Bofur throws up in a trash can. Bifur hovers nearby, clearly alarmed by the situation. Meanwhile, Fili keeps running to the bathroom and then returning, pale-faced and vaguely sweaty. Dwalin looks like he’s going to break something – preferably someone’s face, most likely the face of the stage manager, who pops in every five minutes to give them the countdown. Balin, on the other hand, is – well, Thorin’s not sure what Balin’s doing other than sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and making weird humming sounds.

“I’m meditating,” Balin says, when Thorin asks. “Bilbo taught me.”

“Is it helping?” Thorin asks.

“Somewhat.”

Kili, on the other hand, is pacing back and forth across the green room. “Does anyone else feel like they’re about to piss themselves with fear?” he asks. “Because I feel like I’m about to piss myself with fear.”

“Please try to restrain yourself,” Thorin says. His hands are shaking. If this keeps up, he won’t be able to play without fumbling chords and rhythms all over the place. He wishes Gandalf were back here. Thorin can’t manage his nerves and the band’s nerves at the same time. “It’s the same show we always play, just bigger.”

“A lot bigger,” Ori says. Where Fili’s pale, Ori’s green. Thorin points at the trash can not currently occupied by Bofur’s head and Ori walks unsteadily over to sit by it.

Gloin is shadowboxing in the corner. Thorin can’t imagine that it helps – the last thing he wants is more adrenaline in his system. Fili comes back from his fifth trip to the bathroom in half an hour and sits down on the floor next to Balin. Kili keeps pacing. Oin and Dori are having a loud conversation about how they’re not worried in the slightest. Thorin can’t tell if it’s for the benefit of the younger bandmembers or for themselves. Either way, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Someone knocks on the green room door that doesn’t lead out onto the stage. Thorin opens it, and thank Durin, there’s Gandalf, looking as peaceful as can be. “You left the tables unmanned?”

“No,” Gandalf says, “we sold out.”

“We – what?” Thorin stares at him. “There was a lot! You can’t have possibly –”

“It’s true.” Bilbo appears behind Gandalf. “I’ve got an email list of all the people who wanted shirts or CDs and didn’t get them – we need to set up an online store. And a website. I can’t believe I haven’t done a website yet.”

“Oh, and Thorin, those shirts you signed went pretty fast,” Gandalf adds. It wasn’t Thorin’s idea to sign the shirts. Bilbo made him. “People seemed excited about them.”

Shockingly, this doesn’t help Thorin’s nerves at all. He curls his hands into fists. The band. Think about the band. “Gandalf,” he says in a low voice, “I need your help. They’re about to collapse.”

As if to underscore this sentiment, Bofur retches again. Gandalf’s eyes widen; then he nods and hurries into the green room, Thorin stepping aside to let him through. Then it’s just Bilbo and Thorin, on opposite sides of the doorway. Bilbo is bouncing on the balls of his feet again, although Thorin can’t tell if it’s nerves or excitement. Thorin clears his throat. “It sounds like a full house out there.”

“It is,” Bilbo says. “You’ve got your set list, right?”

“On the stage,” Thorin says. His stomach lurches at the thought of being out there in five minutes, in front of all those people, with a band full of anxious, meditating, shouting, pacing, vomiting musicians. This is going to be a disaster. “What are we doing here?”

“What you were born to do,” Bilbo says, and if the nerves don’t kill Thorin, Bilbo’s certainly going to. He meets Thorin’s eyes. “I won’t tell you not to be nervous. Anyone would be nervous right now. But you aren’t just anyone, Thorin – and this is it. This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

You’re what I’ve been waiting for, Thorin almost says. Luckily he’s got enough self-control remaining to keep his mouth shut. The last thing he needs is for his damned feelings to start leaking out through the cracks in his rules. He swallows hard. “You and Gandalf are going to be out there, yes?”

“You might not be able to see us with the lights,” Bilbo cautions. “Don’t start squinting.”

“I know,” Thorin says. He’s been performing for years. He knows not to squint. “I just want to know you’ll be out there.”

“We’ll be out there,” Bilbo says – promises, more like. “Gandalf’s at center back, I’m at front left. You might not be able to see us, but we’re there. We wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

Thorin takes a deep breath, tries to relax his shoulders. A moment later Bilbo’s hand settles on one of them, small and light and comforting and strong – it sets Thorin’s nerves on fire, but it’s the kind of fire he’s used to. He looks down at Bilbo. Bilbo smiles. “It’s going to be all right.”

Then his expression shifts. “Oh, I’d almost forgotten. Here.”

He lets go of Thorin and starts fumbling around in his pockets. Thorin wants to tell him to put his hand back where it was before Thorin loses his mind, but then Bilbo produces a tiny plastic bag with three heavy silver beads inside. Thorin looks at it, then looks at Bilbo. “What are these?”

“I thought they could go in your hair. At the ends of your braids or something,” Bilbo says. He runs a hand through his own hair, and Thorin remembers that it’s not an act, that hair – it really just looks like that all the time. “It’s your first big show. You might as well dress all the way up.”

Thorin’s mind is spinning. The department store wouldn’t have carried these; Bilbo had to go out of his way to get them. And he didn’t get thirteen of them. Just three. Bilbo got them for Thorin, and no one else. The stage manager opens the stage door, startling both of them, and shouts, “Five minutes!”

Thorin’s grateful that Gandalf’s back there to prevent Dwalin from murdering the stage manager. But five minutes means there’s no time at all. “Thank you,” Thorin says to Bilbo. “Will you help me put them on?”

Thorin realizes fairly quickly that he doesn’t need the help. He attaches a bead each to the left-side braids while Bilbo’s still wrestling with the right. Thorin’s not about to stop him, though, and a moment or so later Bilbo attaches the bead and lets the right-side braid fall back into place. Thorin thought they might feel heavy there, but they don’t. Not at all.

Bilbo shifts his weight. “Remember. Front left.”

As if Thorin would ever forget. “Front left,” he repeats, and Bilbo nods.

It happens so fast that Thorin doesn’t have time to think about it, let alone to decide if it’s a good idea or not. Bilbo puts his hand on Thorin’s shoulder, rises up on his tiptoes, and kisses Thorin’s cheek. Thorin freezes, and Bilbo steps back. “Good show,” he says, and he hurries away.

Thorin feels like his face is on fire. He lifts one hand up, touches the place where Bilbo kissed him, half expecting to find a mark there – some sort of indelible sign of what happened. Otherwise, Thorin thinks, he might conclude that all of this is a hallucination brought on by stage fright. But there’s nothing there. Just the heat of Thorin’s own skin against his fingertips.

“Thorin,” Gandalf calls, and Thorin whips around, sending his braids and beads swinging through the air. Were the others watching? Did the others see? A scan of their faces reveals nothing except a grim sort of resolve. “Come here.”

Thorin joins the circle, hoping his face isn’t as red as it feels. Gandalf is looking at him knowingly. Thorin hates that, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. He beckons the band closer. “We’re ready for this,” he says, and he really does try to make himself believe it. “Let’s make it count.”

Thorin opens the green room door and narrowly avoids hitting the stage manager in the face. “Time?” he asks before the stage manager can say anything else. Thorin can’t vouch for what Dwalin will do if the stage manager shouts again. He nods.

Thorin makes a cursory attempt to wipe Bilbo’s kiss out of his mind, which fails spectacularly, and he resigns himself to the fact that he’s going to do this whole show half out of his mind. Maybe it’ll help with the nerves – Thorin doesn’t know. He grabs his guitar, watches as the others pick up their instruments, and leads them out onto the stage.

The audience is clapping already. Bilbo was right about the lights. They’re nearly blinding, and Thorin reminds himself that Gandalf and Bilbo are there even though he can’t see them. He can hear the rest of the band taking their positions behind him, and as Thorin steps up to the microphone he remembers that opening acts don’t just wander onstage and start playing. They introduce themselves. And since this is Thorin’s band, introducing them is Thorin’s job. He really should have thought this out while he was backstage, and maybe he would have, if Bilbo hadn’t kissed him and knocked Thorin head over heels right before the biggest show of his life.

But there’s no world in which Thorin would wish Bilbo hadn’t kissed him, so he accepts that he’s going to wing it. “Hello,” he says, and his own voice comes back at him, magnified a thousand times. By Durin, he needs a cooler opening line than ‘hello’. “I’m Thorin Oakenshield, and we’re The Lonely Mountains.”

Someone wolf-whistles. Thorin can’t say for sure, but he thinks it’s coming from front left. Good start. Thorin tries to remember what he’s thought about other opening acts’ introductions, and he realizes that he’s always thought they go on too long. He looks back out at the crowd, at all those faces he can’t quite see. “I could talk for another five minutes, but you didn’t come out here to listen to me talk –”

The audience laughs at this. Thorin can’t tell if they’re actually entertained or if they’re just trying to help him out, since he’s clearly flailing and they’re only thirty seconds into the set. He takes a quick glance behind him and confirms that the rest of the band is in position. “– so we’re going to skip the monologue.” Thorin feels like he should say something else, something witty, something sharp, but nothing comes to mind. “Let’s go.”

He nods at Dwalin, and Dwalin starts laying down the heavy, driving bass line that serves as the lead-in to Suckerpunch. For the first repetition of the theme, it’s Dwalin alone; then Kili and Nori come in; and by the third repetition the whole band is in on it, Thorin included. As Thorin starts the first verse, he realizes that he’s forgotten the audience for the most part. Every audience member in a venue with eleven hundred seats, except one.

The set seems to go by in a blink and a blur. There are a few things that stand out in Thorin’s mind – like Kili, in the middle of a horrendously difficult drum solo, tossing one of his drumsticks in the air, catching it, and coming back in without missing a beat. Or Bofur, bringing in a tricky clarinet riff that Thorin’s never heard him get right in practice. Thorin watches Bombur step up to share Fili’s mic on an acapella section, laying down bone-shaking low notes below Thorin’s melody and Fili’s harmony. Then, of course, there’s Jolene.

Bilbo and Gandalf, who both knew ahead of time, failed to inform Thorin that the Indigo Girls were lesbians, and that there were likely to be a lot of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals in the crowd. Thorin had to find out from Kili, who was, predictably, over the moon about it. But even if he had known, Thorin couldn’t have predicted how the crowd would react. The cheering is deafening. Thorin hears multiple wolf-whistles, not all of which could have come from Bilbo. He’d been worried about singing this song. He’s always worried about getting up onstage in front of a crowd he doesn’t know and singing a song that begs some girl not to take his man. But if there’s any crowd for it, it’s this one, and based on the response, they liked it.

Maybe that’s what gives Thorin the guts to actually perform the new song.

You should probably know I’m not good at this kind of thing

You should probably know I don’t usually drink this much

It’s been a long day

And I’ve thrown it away

And my dreams have gone cold to the touch

The first verse is just Thorin’s guitar and his voice. The arrangement was bigger at first, but Balin insisted that they strip it down, claiming that it needed something to build to, and that the kind of moment being described in the lyrics doesn’t start with a bang. So it’s just Thorin. The lights have been brought down a bit, and Thorin no longer has to squint to see the audience. There’s Bilbo, on the end of the left-side front row. He’s sitting bolt upright in his chair, and Thorin remembers that they’ve never practiced this one with him in the room.

You should probably know I’m a few feet from rock bottom

You should probably know I’m this close to giving in

If the nerve’s there, I’ve hit it

I have to admit it

I’m taking this one on the chin

The second verse finally gets the spotlight off Thorin as Kili, Nori, and Balin come in all at once. Balin’s playing softly, doubling the melody an octave above and below. Kili keeps a light rhythm, nothing overpowering, and Nori provides a syncopation that builds tension through the verse. Then the others come in, first as a trickle, then as a cascade, and all of them gear up for the chorus.

When you look at me, can you tell I’ve been dying

Every day for as long as I know?

My best isn’t enough, but I still keep on trying

I’m not brave enough to let it all go

Maybe you don’t know, but maybe you can empathize

I feel alive again when I look in your eyes

You should probably know that I came here running from something

You should probably know I’m getting to the end of my rope

You’re dressed for the weather

You’ve got it together

And it seems I’m allergic to hope

You should probably know that you look like my wildest daydream

You should probably know that your smile is breaking my heart

You burn like an ember

I can’t quite remember

The last time someone took me apart

When you look at me, can you tell I’ve been dying

On my own, all alone, on the inside and out?

My best isn’t enough, but I still keep on trying

To piece together what life is about

Maybe I don’t look it, it’s a brilliant disguise

But I feel alive again when I look in your eyes

Thorin hates it when bands change keys mid-song, so he’s ducked it in this arrangement by putting the bridge at the upper end of his vocal range. It’s not an easy place for him to sing, but he thinks it adds something to the song – pressure and desperation and cracks in a mask that’s been in place too long. And hope, too, because every high note he hits gives him confidence that he can hit the next one.

You should know, you should know, I’m a little too damaged

You should know, you should know, that I’m not quite as good

But if you talk, then I’m talking

You walk, then I’m walking

I’d follow you wherever I could

You should know, you should know, that when you came over

I was thinking about caving in

But I looked at you

And all at once I knew

It was time to come alive again

They pared the arrangement back here, per Thorin’s request this time. Part of it’s about tension, keeping the song moving forward. Part of it is because the two verses in the bridge are heavy with emotion, and when Thorin sings them, all he can think of is that first night in Minnesota. He can’t let that pour out onstage. Not yet, and maybe not ever. When they come into the final choruses, the first is reined in. The second isn’t.

When you look at me, can you tell I’ve been dying

Just a little more every day?

My best isn’t enough, but I still keep on trying

I’ve been looking for a reason to stay

I would run the red lights, drive straight through the night

If it meant that you’d maybe be mine

If it meant that you’d fall, then I’d give it all

Put my heart on the firing line

Maybe we’re not there yet, but you’re the best kind of surprise

I feel alive again when I look in your eyes

They let the arrangement collapse in on itself until it’s only Thorin and Kili left. And then it’s over, and Thorin is looking out at the crowd, looking for Gandalf, looking for Bilbo. There’s Gandalf, all the way in the back, smiling. And there’s Bilbo, still bolt upright, with that same look on his face that Thorin remembers from the first night and the last song in what was supposed to be their last set. But Bilbo is here and Bilbo is smiling, and more improbable yet, he kissed Thorin with that smiling mouth not even an hour ago. In the short glance Thorin gives him, he can see Bilbo’s eyes alight.

Thorin’s set list, as always, includes Country Roads, and they go big with the arrangement – only to immediately go bigger with the arrangement of Born to Run that Bruce fucking Springsteen retweeted. By the time that one’s over, Thorin’s breathing hard and his throat feels raw and his fingertips are aching on the strings. He manages to thank the crowd and gets immediately deafened by applause. Then Thorin beckons all twelve of the others forward for the first real bow they’ve ever taken. And they get to do it twice.

Kili gets back into the green room first; by the time Thorin makes it in there, his youngest nephew is bouncing off the walls. “That was amazing! Can we do it again?”

“Right now?” Thorin’s voice is rougher than he’s heard it in a while – it’s not often that his singing impacts his speaking. Dwalin throws a water bottle at him. Thorin untwists the cap and chugs half of it in one swallow.

“Not right now,” Kili decides. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’ve decided,” Balin says mildly, “that I love giant venues full of lesbians.”

“They weren’t all lesbians,” Bofur points out, “but so do I.”

Ori seems to have caught Kili’s restlessness – neither of them can stand still. “This is literally the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to me. Way better than playing in bars.”

“Better than beer!” Kili agrees. Coming from Kili, that’s high praise indeed.

Fili finally gives up trying to be an adult and starts hopping around with the other two. “Better than playing on a giant mountain with the bears!”

“Better than sex!” Ori says, and the other two fall silent.

Fili stares at him. “What kind of sex have you been having?”

Dwalin shakes his head. “We need to find you a girl.”

Thorin manages to hold onto his laughter until he’s swallowed the other half of the water bottle; then he falls back against the wall, laughing so hard that his chest aches. Thorin can’t quite agree with Ori’s last assertion, but he gets the general point. There’s not anything like being onstage and singing your songs and knowing that they’re hitting home for not just one person in the audience, but almost all of them. Every time Thorin thinks he’s played his best show, the next show comes along and knocks the other one out of the park.

“Don’t celebrate yet,” he says. “We’re still on for the last song, and the encore.”

“Can we celebrate after the encore?” Kili asks.

“Yes,” Thorin says.

He hopes they’ll take the opportunity to wind down a little bit – he doesn’t want to bring them back out onstage in this state. And in fact, they seem content to hang out in the green room, talking about their favorite moments from the show, turning over new ideas for songs and arrangements, or, in the case of Fili, Kili, and Ori, having an uncomfortable discussion about the proper way to engage in straight sex. Thorin watches them for a moment. Then he heads to the wings to watch the headliners from side stage.

At some point in the past three years, Thorin stopped enjoying concerts. He didn’t want to see new artists perform, or even established ones, because he couldn’t watch without feeling jealousy and anger bubble up in the back of his throat. Thorin didn’t wish them ill, precisely – he wished that their luck had been his. That instead of them, it had been Thorin who wrote the right song with the right music, played it in front of the right person at the right time and launched himself and his band to stardom. Thorin was still self-aware enough to be ashamed of this, but not quite self-aware enough to stop, and the resulting intrapersonal tug-of-war ruined concerts for him.

Now things are different. Now watching other artists perform inspires Thorin, and while the Indigo Girls aren’t in Thorin’s genre or going after the same share of the audience, he knows skill when he sees it – and he knows what it looks like when a band is beloved by their audience. Write music that you’re proud of, practice it endlessly, put it up on stage for people you know will love it as much as you do. Thorin tries to imagine getting to do that every night. It sounds too good to be true.

But maybe things aren’t always too good to be true. Maybe sometimes they’re just good, period.

It turns out that Thorin’s the only one in the band who learned all the words to both songs they’re supposed to sing with the headliners. The adrenaline rush from a successful show seems to have wiped the lyrics completely out of the others’ heads. But if one person had to remember, it’s lucky that it’s Thorin, because Thorin winds up at the front of the stage with his guitar in his hands and a microphone in front of his face, standing in the same line as the headliners. Thorin doesn’t sing with female singers very often, but he finds it’s not much different than singing with male singers, except for that women tend to enunciate more and wreck their voices less.

When it’s over, Thorin stumbles offstage in a daze. He heads off in the wrong direction from the rest of the band, and Gandalf is sent to retrieve him. Gandalf takes his guitar and pats him on the shoulder. “How do you feel, Thorin?”

How does Thorin feel? “High,” Thorin says after a moment, and Gandalf chuckles.

“That’s to be expected,” he says. “You’ve had a very good night. I would suggest bracing yourself, though.”

“Bracing myself?” Thorin repeats as they approach the green room. “Why?”

Thorin supposes he should have seen trouble coming when Gandalf hid behind the door as Thorin opened it, but his head is still in the clouds, and he doesn’t realize what’s happening until half the band piles out on top of him and knocks him over. Someone’s elbow goes directly into Thorin’s stomach and all the air whooshes from his lungs. He gets it back long enough to roll sideways and escape being flattened by Bofur. “What is – _ouch_ – going on?”

“We,” Balin says, from where he’s pinning Thorin’s legs down, “are going out to celebrate. And you are coming with us.”

“I said we were going to celebrate,” Thorin says, attempting to free one of his arms from Nori’s grip. “What is this all about?”

“Because we have extra stuff to celebrate,” Kili says. “Bilbo, tell him!”

This is not how Thorin wanted to see Bilbo again after the show. In the scene he imagined, he was standing up, not on the ground with one arm and both legs held down and Bombur sprawled across his midsection. “Tell me what?”

Bilbo is smiling down at Thorin, and Thorin is wishing very much that he wasn’t glued to the floor. “Tonight’s show,” he says, “wasn’t just a fill-in. It was a tryout.”

Thorin’s brain must be deprived of oxygen. With his free hand he points at Dwalin, who’s standing back, grinning, and then at Bombur. Dwalin steps forward and rolls Bombur off to the side so Thorin can sit partway up. “A tryout for what?”

“To be the Indigo Girls’ new opening act, on all concert dates that you haven’t already booked,” Bilbo says. He can barely contain his excitement, and it would take Thorin’s breath away if his own band’s sneak attack hadn’t already done that. “You passed. They picked you.”

Thorin just stares up at him. Bilbo meets his eyes for a second and his cheeks flush. “So that’s what this is about,” Bilbo finishes. “We have to celebrate, as Kili said, extra.”

“And we have to go soon!” Fili squawks. “I’m going to be late.”

Bilbo blinks, confused. “Late for what?”

“My date!” Fili protests. “I’m supposed to meet her at eleven, at the Prancing Pony!”

Thorin mouths the words ‘prancing pony’ at Balin. Balin shrugs and looks up at Bilbo. “You know Seattle, Bilbo. Would that be a good place to celebrate?”

Bilbo shrugs. “As good as any.”

“Then let’s go,” Thorin says. He shakes Nori off and gets to his feet. “I’ve heard that extra celebrating takes all night.”

* * *

The Prancing Pony is not what Thorin was expecting. With a name like that, he was expecting more pink, and maybe also some flowers. Instead it’s a normal bar, albeit a fancier one than Thorin would go to on his own. But they’re celebrating. Thorin thinks they can afford to spend a little more than usual.

Fili has identified his girl and is sitting at a table near the back of the bar with her. The rest of the band is squeezed into two booths and pretending that they’re not spying on him. Thorin is jammed into the back corner of one of the booths, with Kili on one side and Dwalin on the other, and he’s struggling to keep a smile off his face.

“This is awesome,” Kili enthuses. “I’ve never been to a bar that has menus.”

“You all will have to tell me what drinks you want,” says Bilbo, who’s sitting at the end of the bench next to Gloin. “We’re going to have to pry the three of you out of there with a crowbar.”

“No, you don’t have to –” Thorin attempts to get up and realizes that Bilbo’s right. And Bilbo’s already pulled out his notebook. “Thank you.”

Kili orders something ridiculous, which of course involves tequila. Dwalin wants an Irish car bomb. Bilbo blinks a little when he says that, but writes it down nonetheless. He turns to Thorin, an expectant look on his face. “Thorin, what about you?”

“Uh –” Thorin casts about for something to say, because he got distracted looking at Bilbo’s mouth and forgot to think of a drink, and now his mind is completely and utterly blank. “I don’t care. Anything.”

“Jack Daniels and Coke,” Dwalin says. He frees one hand only to slap Thorin on the shoulder. Thorin winces. “That’s what he usually gets.”

Bilbo writes it down. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Thanks, Bilbo!” Kili waves. Then, as soon as Bilbo’s out of earshot, he shoves Thorin playfully with his shoulder. At least, it would be playful, if Thorin wasn’t pinned to Dwalin and unable to get away. “Thorin. What’s with the bling?”

“Bling?” Thorin says. Time to use one of Kili’s favorite tactics – playing dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He means the beads,” Dwalin says, smirking.

Thorin glares at him. “Not you, too.”

“No, seriously,” Kili says. “Did they come from where I think they came from?”

Playing dumb isn’t working. Thorin tries to play it cool. “Where do you think they came from?”

“Don’t be cute,” Dwalin says. “We saw Bilbo give them to you. What gives?”

“Nothing! Nothing gives,” Thorin snaps. “Bilbo found them. He thought they would be a good idea, and so did I. That’s it.”

Kili just shakes head. “Nice try. You don’t do jewelry. Like, ever. Your last boyfriend got you that leather bracelet and you never wore it once.”

“That was a nice bracelet,” Dwalin muses. “I always meant to steal it.”

“Go for it. It’s probably still in my apartment somewhere,” Thorin says. He looks back at Kili. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Kili says, an enormous smirk beginning to spread across his face, “that you wouldn’t wear jewelry your last boyfriend gave you, but you’ll wear jewelry from Bilbo. What do you think that means, Dwalin?”

“Well, I don’t know, Kili,” Dwalin says, matching Kili’s affected, academic tone. Thorin would find it entertaining if they weren’t making fun of him. “I think it means Thorin here is experiencing an emotion. What could that emotion be called?”

Kili and Dwalin both turn to Thorin. Both are smirking. “Beads aren’t jewelry,” Thorin says, completely aware that it’s the worst argument he’s ever made.

“Ha!” Kili slaps the table, his smirk shifting into a grin. “Uncle Thorin, lean forward so I can punch Dwalin. He owes me a dollar.”

Thorin declines to provide punching space. “I don’t know why I bet with you,” Dwalin grunts. “You don’t bitch when you lose or gloat when you win. And you have no money. It’s not even fun.”

In spite of the cramped space, Dwalin still manages to extract a crumpled dollar bill from his pocket and slide it across the table to Kili. Thorin, meanwhile, is trying to figure out if he can maintain plausible deniability in this situation or if he should just give up before he embarrasses himself. This is not something he wants to talk to his bass player and his drummer about, not to mention his older cousin and his nephew. This isn’t something Thorin really wants to talk to anybody about, save one person – and that person is the source of the trouble in the first place.

Kili jolts Thorin out of his musings with an elbow to the ribs. Thorin swears. “The next time you do that, I’m going to leave you in a trash can and tell your mother I lost you.”

“Sounds fun,” Kili says distractedly. “Bilbo’s coming back. He doesn’t look happy.”

Thorin looks up. Half the time Kili would lose his own head if it wasn’t attached, but he can be surprisingly perceptive, and Thorin, who’s made a study of Bilbo’s expressions, can see that Kili’s called it right. Bilbo looks upset, but more than upset – uncomfortable and embarrassed and desperately unhappy. Seeing that look makes Thorin worried, even before Bilbo gets to the table and Thorin sees that he’s gripping his notebook so hard that his hand shakes.

“What happened?” Thorin says.

“My dear Bilbo,” Gandalf says from the next booth, “what on earth is the matter?”

“I – ah – er, well,” Bilbo stammers. “I, uh –”

There’s only one thing Thorin can think of that produces that reaction in anybody, and given what he knows about Bilbo – “You saw your ex.”

Bilbo looks up at Thorin, shocked. Meanwhile, everyone in both booths winces. “Stay put,” Balin orders, and the occupants of the second booth uproot themselves to form a protective half-circle around Bilbo, shielding him from outside eyes. “All right, lad. Where is he?”

“More like, what does he look like?” Kili is already standing up in his seat – and putting his knee in Thorin’s face – in search of a better view.

Bilbo looks as though he’d like to sink through the floor. “Red hair, blue eyes. Taller than me, but shorter than Thorin.”

Kili is being very obvious about his staring. Thorin doesn’t think it matters, because Bilbo’s completely out of sight – and besides, Thorin is thinking about why Bilbo might use him as the comparing factor instead of Dwalin, who’s the tallest. He looks up idly and sees Kili making a face. “Does he have a shitty little earring?”

Bilbo squeezes his eyes shut. “Yes.”

“Ugh. He looks like a _douche_,” Kili says. He drops back into his seat, somehow managing not to kill Thorin in the process. “What happened? Who dumped who?”

“He dumped me,” Bilbo says. He looks like he wants to bury his face in his hands.

“Well, that makes him dumb and ugly,” Kili says matter-of-factly. Thorin couldn’t agree more. “So what do we do?”

“This isn’t your problem,” Bilbo says. He wrestles himself back into composure. “I’m fine. Give me a moment to – I don’t know – fortify myself, and I’ll go back and order the drinks.”

“Au contraire, my friend,” Bofur says. “You’re in the band. Therefore, your problems are our problems. What are our options?”

“We could always just leave,” Gandalf says. Thorin suspects he’s trying to clear the reasonable suggestion first, so they can move on to something more ridiculous and therefore more entertaining. “It would be easy.”

“We shouldn’t leave just because of him. That means he wins,” Gloin protests. “Besides, there’s Fili.”

Thorin winces. He forgot about Fili. “What’s wrong with Fili?” Bilbo asks.

“If we let him wander off with a girl, we’ll spend hours looking for him,” Thorin says. “It’s easier to keep any eye on him the whole time.”

“We accidentally left him in Tennessee a couple months back,” Bofur puts in. Bilbo’s jaw drops. “It’s not worth the risk. Beyond that, we’re here to celebrate. We shouldn’t split up.”

“Okay, new plan,” Dwalin says. He cracks his knuckles menacingly. “Me and Thorin drag your ex into the alley and punch him until he cries.”

“That would be in about one punch. He’s not the toughest,” Bilbo says dryly. “Besides, I’m not having the two of you getting into a bar fight on my behalf. That would put a damper on the celebrations.”

“Really? I think it improves them.” Dwalin cracks his knuckles again and Thorin grits his teeth at the sound. “And we wouldn’t be fighting him in the bar. We’d be fighting him in the alley.”

Bilbo raises his eyebrows and turns to Thorin. “What do you think of this?”

“I’d punch him once,” Thorin says immediately, hoping he doesn’t sound too enthusiastic. Bilbo rolls his eyes, but Thorin thinks he looks just a little bit pleased with the prospect.

“So far on our list of possible solutions,” Gandalf says, ticking them off on his fingers, “we have total surrender and assault charges. Anything else?”

Silence. Then Bofur speaks. “Well, lads, there’s only one thing for it.”

Everyone looks at him. Bofur’s ideas tend to come out half-baked at best, but in this case, it won’t be any worse than the ideas they’ve already come up with. “And what thing is that?” Bilbo asks.

“Well, it’s obvious,” Bofur says, although Thorin thinks that if it were obvious to anyone else, someone would have said it already. “What’s the only thing worse than running into your ex?”

“Running into your ex while you’re drunk,” Kili says immediately.

“Well, that is pretty bad,” Bofur says after a moment’s contemplation. “But the worst thing on the axis of pure humiliation is running into your ex with their new date. Brave men have been known to flee the scene when confronted with their ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.”

Bofur takes this opportunity to cough. The cough sounds suspiciously like ‘Dwalin’. “So what we need to do here is get Bilbo a new date.”

This sounds absolutely ridiculous to Thorin. But ridiculous to the extent that they just might be able to pull it off. He glances at Bilbo to see what he thinks and is surprised to see him nodding. “That could work,” Bilbo says. “Who’s my fake date?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos, and to adiaphora, Gerec, HM, and LostGryphin for the comments. They always make my day.


	11. Chapter 11

“I say Dwalin does it,” Ori says after a moment. Thorin doesn’t think he’s heard a worse idea in his life, other than his grandfather’s notion to hire Smaug. “He’s the most intimidating.”

“No wonder you think playing a show is better than sex,” Nori says, thumping him in the back of the head. “Look at Bilbo. Now look at Dwalin. There’s no way that would work.”

Bilbo and Dwalin exchange a glance. “No offense, I guess,” Bilbo says.

“None taken,” Dwalin says. Thorin wonders when Dwalin warmed up to Bilbo.

“Why wouldn’t it work?” Ori protests.

Balin pats his shoulder. “We’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Besides, it’s not all about intimidation,” Kili puts in. “We have to show this guy up. Bilbo’s fake boyfriend needs to be the Prince Charming of boyfriends. The whole package. Attentive, protective, affectionate – hot. Seeing them together should make Bilbo’s ex want to go jump in traffic.”

“When you find that guy, you should introduce me,” Bilbo says. Thorin’s got no idea how to fit that comment into his understanding of Bilbo.

“I’m pretty sure we’ve found him,” Kili says cryptically, and Thorin kicks him under the table. “Ouch!”

Bilbo looks askance at this outburst, and the rest of the band moves to distract him. By Durin, how many of them are in on whatever Kili and Dwalin have been hinting at? “I think Balin should do it,” Oin says.

“No,” Balin says. “No offense, Bilbo.”

“None taken,” Bilbo says. He flails a hand at the space between them. “The age difference – it’s too weird.”

Balin nods in agreement. Ori looks thankful to see someone else’s idea shot down; then he turns on Kili. “Why doesn’t Kili do it? Since he’s got all the ideas.”

“I would!” Kili says brightly. “I think I’d be the perfect boyfriend. The problem is, I’m not intimidating enough. We need Prince Charming, but if Prince Charming was, like, the Terminator. What do you think, Gandalf?”

“Hmm.” Gandalf strokes his beard. He looks at every person in the half-circle and in the booth in turn. His eyes settle on Thorin last, and Thorin realizes what Gandalf is going to say. He looks at Gandalf pleadingly, but he’s not sure what he’s pleading for, and based on the way Gandalf’s smile changes into a smirk, he can tell. “I think Thorin would be perfect for the job.”

“Thorin?” Bilbo sputters.

Dwalin is nodding slowly, like this idea has just occurred to him. Based on his smirking earlier, Thorin doubts it. “Aye, I think Thorin should do it.”

Ori looks from Bilbo to Thorin and back again with an appraising eye. “That would work.”

“Oh, congratulations, you’ve got eyes,” Nori says. He goes to thump Ori again. This time Ori ducks. “Kili, Gloin, let Thorin out. He’s got a job to do.”

“Hold on,” Bilbo says. He’s still clutching his notebook. “You haven’t asked Thorin if he’ll do it.”

Of course this can’t be easy. Of course Thorin can’t just be dragged into it unwillingly. Of course he actually has to say yes. And he’s not sure he wants to. Thorin doesn’t want to playact at being with Bilbo only to go back to being artist and agent; it would be too uncomfortable, and too painful. Thorin can all too easily imagine himself getting caught up in it to the point where he kisses Bilbo or punches Bilbo’s ex – and quite possibly both. Thorin thinks of Bilbo’s kiss on his cheek. That happened, too. Maybe it won’t be all the way fake.

“I’ll do it,” he says. “Kili, Gloin – move.”

While Thorin tries to work his way out of the booth, the others begin to talk strategy. In Thorin’s opinion, they’re taking it way too seriously – Gandalf in particular. “We must be clever. The task I have in mind will require a great deal of charm and an utter absence of tact.”

“Then we’ve picked the right fake boyfriend,” Kili says. “At least for the last one. Stop shoving, Thorin.”

“Then start moving,” Thorin retorts. He’s been seized by the desire to get this over with as fast as possible. “I don’t think this is as complicated as you’re making it sound.”

“We need to make sure douche-bag earring ex sees them,” Bofur says, and everyone else nods. “And not only that, we need to make sure douche-bag earring ex sees them together. The last one’s most important. How do we get them out there?”

“Send us to the bar to order drinks,” Bilbo says after a moment. He sets his notebook on the table; Thorin is certain that he’s memorized their orders. “I was going there anyway, and we all still need drinks. It’s not even a cover story – it’s the truth.”

“Very good, Bilbo,” Gandalf says. “Better yet, that will send you straight through the tables and around the dance floor, giving douche-bag earring ex multiple chances to spot you.”

Thorin thinks he’s going to explode if he hears the phrase ‘douche-bag earring ex’ one more time. Especially from Gandalf. “Through the tables and around the dance floor. Got it. For Durin’s sake, Gloin, would you just move?”

Gloin flails ineffectually for a few more moments before Thorin’s patience snaps. Thorin shoves Kili, and Kili shoves Gloin. Gloin pops out of the booth like a cork and Kili tumbles out on top of him. Thorin steps over them and into the middle of the half-circle. Now he’s facing Bilbo. He can’t read the look on Bilbo’s face. Consternation, maybe. Confusion, definitely. Determination? That doesn’t match the situation they’re in, unless Bilbo is simply determined to stick it to his ex in the most dramatic way possible. But that doesn’t match Bilbo’s earlier actions. Thorin leans against the table and waits for the strategy discussion to conclude.

“What happens if he talks to them?” Kili says.

“I imagine Thorin will wind himself up and let go,” Balin says. Bilbo’s head whips around at that, and Thorin wonders what he did to earn that description – then, on second thought, realizes that he’s probably done a lot of things. “That’s the least of our problems here.”

“Problem? There’s no problem,” Bilbo says. “We’re going to order drinks and come back. Easy.”

“Yeah,” Kili says, “but you have to look like a couple while you’re doing it, or the whole thing will look fake.”

“You know, that might be the only thing worse than running into your ex and their new date,” Bofur muses. “Running into your ex while faking another relationship. It’s very important that it looks real.”

Thorin is starting to wonder what they’ll consider believable. How far does this thing have to go? How far can Thorin let it go without doing something stupid? “Thorin,” Gandalf says, “go stand next to Bilbo.”

Thorin glares daggers at Gandalf, but does as he’s bid. Kili studies them. “I think they should hold hands.”

“Agreed,” Dwalin says.

Thorin glances at Bilbo and finds Bilbo already looking at him. “Well, go on, then,” Ori prompts. “Hold hands.”

Thorin would strangle Ori if Ori weren’t somehow distantly related to him. The others are watching, too, eyebrows raised and expectant. Sometimes Thorin thinks that the universe hates him. It persists in giving him the things he wants in the worst possible circumstances. Thorin doesn’t want to take Bilbo on a fake date. But Thorin’s already agreed to this, and he’s not going to back out now, so he reaches out and grabs Bilbo’s hand.

Silence. Bilbo’s hand twitches in Thorin’s, and Thorin realizes that he’s holding on way too hard. He loosens his grip. “Oh, Durin save us,” Nori says, appalled. “Do either of you know how to hold hands?”

“We know how to hold hands!” Bilbo says.

Thorin looks down at their hands. “What’s wrong with it?”

“That’s not how you hold hands,” Kili says. “You have to look like you want to hold hands, not like somebody’s handcuffed you together.”

“Now, that’s not fair,” Balin says after a moment. “They don’t look handcuffed.”

While the others debate, Thorin inspects the offending handhold. He’s holding on overhand, not underhand. That might be part of the problem. Thorin adjusts his grip, then goes one better and laces his fingers through Bilbo’s. Bilbo’s hand is so delicate in Thorin’s, but somehow it’s not fragile. At first Thorin thinks Bilbo’s just tolerating the readjustment; then his fingers clamp down on Thorin’s with surprising strength and Thorin feels a line of fire streak down his spine. Thorin closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. He can already tell – this is going to be a disaster, even if it works.

“Oh, would you look at that,” Dwalin says. “Seems they’ve figured it out on their own. Budge up, you lot – let them out.”

The standing part of the circle makes a space for the two of them, and Thorin starts forward. “Remember,” Gandalf says, “go through the tables –”

“And around the dance floor,” Thorin says impatiently. “Can we go?”

Thorin glances at Bilbo. Bilbo looks like he’s ready to start a fight, but also like he wants to crawl under the table and hide. “Yes.”

“Remember,” Kili says in a stage whisper as they make their way out of the circle, “act like you like each other!”

Thorin wonders if Kili knows that Thorin’s been acting like that nearly every single day since he met Bilbo Baggins. Or maybe Kili does know, and that’s why he’s saying it. In any case, he’s standing there, trying to decide on the proper route through the tables and around the dance floor, when Bilbo steps forward and starts leading Thorin towards the bar.

“Come on,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at Thorin. “Keep up. Your legs are longer than mine.”

“You’re walking too fast,” Thorin says. It occurs to him that he’s taller than Bilbo is; Thorin plants his feet and Bilbo’s forward progress comes to a sudden halt. “Isn’t half the point of it letting him see us?”

“I suppose,” Bilbo says. He slows his pace, but Thorin hears him mutter under his breath, “This is not how I wanted to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Nothing.” But Bilbo’s face is red when he says it.

They make it to the bar without incident, but there’s only one empty seat. After a moment in which they look awkwardly from each other to the seat and back, Bilbo sits in it, and Thorin leans back against the bar facing the other way. He lets go of Bilbo’s hand and crosses his arms over his chest. Thorin supposes that he’s suitable for this job only because he has a vague idea of what Bilbo’s ex looks like. He’s seen him in pictures, after all.

Bilbo, meanwhile, orders the drinks. “They’ll give them to us on a tray,” he says to Thorin. “We’ll carry them back.”

That means they won’t hold hands on the way back. That’s fine. No, it isn’t fine, but there’s nothing Thorin can do about it. “Fine,” he says, scanning the other patrons of the Prancing Pony. His eyes move over the dance floor, and Thorin realizes that the ratio of straight couples to gay and lesbian couples in this bar is way off. It’s almost even, actually. “I didn’t think this was a gay bar.”

“It’s not,” Bilbo says after a moment. “The name scares off the insecure straight people, who coincidentally are also more likely to be homophobic. The bouncers here also have sort of a no-strike policy.”

“What do you mean?” Thorin asks. As he watches, a straight couple and a gay couple back up into each other on the dance floor – but no one’s angry with each other, and the straight man in the equation doesn’t look uncomfortable or threatened. Instead all four of them smile at each other and head off in different directions.

“The first time they catch someone harassing or threatening or stalking someone else, they throw them out,” Bilbo says. “And they take a picture of their face first, so they can catch them if they try to come back in. The first time I came here, some guy threw a drink on me and that bouncer over there – his name’s Beorn – grabbed him, held him still while the bartender snapped a picture, and then threw him out.”

Thorin doesn’t think he’s been to a single bar in the Rocky Mountains region that could tolerate both straight and same-sex couples in equal number, and he’s definitely never been to one that actually ejects unsavory characters when they do something wrong. The lion’s share of bar fights Thorin’s been in actually happened outside the bar, in the parking lot, because he knew anything that started inside would be seen as his fault, regardless of who threw the first punch. So Thorin figured he might as well take things outside and throw the first punch himself.

“This seems like a good place,” he says aloud.

“It is,” Bilbo says. “I spent a lot of time here when I was in college.”

Thorin thinks about Bilbo in college, about that photo he saw of Bilbo’s college graduation – and the other photos, which brings him back to the whole point of this fake boyfriends thing. It’s strange. Thorin knows the man’s face, but it’s the stupid earring that he spots first. “Bilbo. Incoming.”

“Oh, no,” Bilbo says in a strangled voice. “Help.”

“Don’t worry,” Thorin says. He watches Bilbo’s ex approach and tries to think of something couple-like to do, just to make sure there’s no confusion from the start. He also tries not to look like he’s trying to think of couple things to do. Actual couples don’t do that. “I’ve got it.”

“Do you?” Bilbo is looking up at him, and Thorin figures it out all at once. He renews his grip on Bilbo’s hand, lifts it to his mouth, and kisses it, all without breaking eye contact. Bilbo’s eyes are wide on his. “Thorin –”

“Bilbo?”

Bilbo’s ex has said exactly one word and Thorin already hates him. Without looking away from Thorin, Bilbo says, “Theo. It’s been a while.”

Theo. What a stupid name. Thorin drags the eye contact out another moment, then looks away from Bilbo and at Theo. He makes sure to straighten up and show off the five inches of height he has on Bilbo’s ex. “Theo,” he says, and he tries to pour every ounce of disdain into the name. “I’ve heard about you.”

Theo’s blue eyes are watery and guarded. “What did you hear?”

_That you’re a spineless bastard_. “Mixed reviews,” Thorin says. “Started out strong, but wound up being a disappointment.”

Bilbo lets out a little snort and twists around on his barstool. “Theo, this is Thorin.”

Theo looks Thorin up and down. Thorin stares at him. This idiot isn’t even worth a once-over. “He’s not your usual type.”

“You were my usual type, and that turned out wonderfully,” Bilbo says. Thorin hopes he’s never on the receiving end of one of these conversations – Bilbo has a much sharper tongue than he would have expected. “What are you doing here, Theo? As I recall, you made your intentions fairly clear the last time we talked – or, rather, the last time we didn’t talk.”

“I thought a clean break would be best,” Theo says.

“A clean break?” Bilbo says. His eyebrows go up, and his mouth is set in a thin line. “We were together for six years, and your version of a clean break was a four-line note.”

Six years? It’s lucky Thorin’s holding Bilbo’s hand. Otherwise, he’d probably have punched Theo by now. “So I’ll ask again,” Bilbo says, far more politely than Thorin would have. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here. What are you doing here?” Theo asks. “I heard you moved to Los Angeles.”

“And I’m not allowed to come back?” Bilbo says. “I’m here for work.”

As he’s saying this, he picks up one of Thorin’s braids and begins to fiddle with the bead on the end of it, as casually as if he does so every day. The absurdity of it strikes Thorin; Bilbo is playing with his hair, in public, while they’re pretending to be dating in order to torture Bilbo’s ex. There it is again, something he wants under circumstances he hates. Even so, Thorin can’t help but enjoy it a little. More than a little.

“Lobelia said you were on the road with a new band,” Theo says. He’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s staring at them. Every word out of his mouth is tinged with incredulity. “She’s apartment-sitting for you, and she said you haven’t been back to your apartment in almost a month.”

“I’m not sure why you and my cousin are still talking,” Bilbo says. He twists the end of Thorin’s braid around his fingers idly. “But since you are, tell Lobelia that if she keeps sharing information on my whereabouts with anyone who asks, I’m shutting off the hot water, the WiFi, and the lights.”

This is another thing Thorin didn’t know about Bilbo; when it comes to people who’ve hurt him, he pulls no punches. Just like Thorin wouldn’t. Except Thorin’s punches would be actual punches. Theo, damn him, persists in spite of this, and he doesn’t look remotely ashamed of himself. “Who’s the band? Lobelia didn’t know.”

Bilbo’s shoulders are tensing. Thorin decides it’s time to step in. What was it Gandalf said – an utter absence of tact? Thorin’s the right man for the job. He can do that in his sleep. He glances sideways at Theo. “You talk a lot, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?” Theo’s face flushes. It’s not nearly as attractive on him as it is on Bilbo.

“You do,” Thorin says. “I’m surprised someone hasn’t told you that – although maybe they just couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

Their drinks arrive, Thorin’s and Bilbo’s. The rest of the band’s drinks are still in progress. Thorin taps his glass against Bilbo’s, trying not to give the game away, but it’s hard when Bilbo’s looking at him like that, because Bilbo’s never looked at him that way before. It’s not disapproving – in fact, he looks almost impressed. And more than a little pleased. Thorin finishes half his drink in a single sip and sets it down on the bar. “See,” he says to Theo, “I can’t work you out. Dump someone with a note three days before their parents’ funeral, then come over here for a friendly chat? In what world is that a reasonable thing to do? In what alternate universe do you imagine that Bilbo ever wants to see your face again, let alone carry on a conversation with you that consists of more words than ‘fuck you, go away’?”

“You talk a lot, too,” Theo says after a moment. Thorin’s heard worse comebacks, but not many of them.

“No, he doesn’t,” Bilbo says, “and unlike you, he listens when I tell him to shut up.”

That shouldn’t be a compliment, but it feels like one anyway. Thorin fights back a smile.

Bilbo finishes his entire drink in one swallow. Thorin’s seen him do it before, but it’s still a surprise – a lukewarm beer is a whole different ballgame from a gin martini. “As enjoyable as this has been, Theo, I think it’s time to cut it short. For the last time – why did you really come over here?”

Theo has his arms crossed. Thorin thinks again how stupid his earring looks. “You might not believe this, Bilbo, but I came over here to see how you’re doing.”

“And if I tell you, will you go away?” Bilbo asks. When Theo nods, he says, “I’m all right. No thanks to you.”

Theo at least has the decency to look embarrassed, but it doesn’t last long. He jerks his chin at Thorin. “But thanks to him?”

“I don’t think that’s really your business,” Bilbo says. He looks at Thorin, and a slight smile crosses his face. Thorin feels the ground drop out from beneath his feet. “Goodbye, Theo.”

Bilbo keeps playing around with Thorin’s braid even after Theo’s walked away. “I think we’re in the clear,” he says. “He might lurk around in the background for a bit, but he’s terrible at confrontations, and you –”

Bilbo breaks off for a moment. “I’m what?” Thorin asks.

“You’re way too much for him to handle,” Bilbo says. He looks up at Thorin from under his eyelashes. It kills Thorin a little bit every time he does that, and right now is no exception. “Thank you for that.”

“Any time,” Thorin says.

“I do hope you mean it,” Bilbo says. “It’s quite nice to have my own knight in shining armor.”

Thorin means it. In fact, if Bilbo knew just how much Thorin means it, he probably wouldn’t have called Thorin a knight in shining armor, _his_ knight in shining armor. Thorin reminds himself that it’s an act, then remembers that there’s not a point in putting on the act any longer. Theo’s out of earshot and they’re still holding hands. Their fiction passed muster. So why would Bilbo say something like that now? Thorin’s mind supplies a whole set of unattractive possibilities, but Thorin shoves them aside and tries to practice something he’s not very good at – taking things at face value. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. Maybe Bilbo isn’t playing a game. Maybe he said it because he means it.

The bartender interrupts before Thorin can say something. He’s carrying two trays of drinks, and he turns to Bilbo. “Are you sure you want to carry these yourself? They’re heavy.”

“You’re right,” Bilbo says. “Do you mind bringing them to those booths back there? They’ll know whose is whose.”

“Of course,” the bartender says. He nods at Bilbo’s empty glass and Thorin’s half-empty one. “I’ll send another one of each of those, too.”

“Thanks,” Bilbo says, and the bartender moves away, balancing a tray in each hand.

Thorin looks at Bilbo, surprised. “I thought you said we’d have to carry them.”

“I did,” Bilbo agrees. “But I imagine the band wants their drinks sooner rather than later, and you and I aren’t finished here.”

“What do you mean?” Thorin says. “We scared him off, didn’t we?”

“Yes, and he’ll probably be beating himself up about that for the next six months,” Bilbo says. Thorin won’t deny that the idea amuses him. “But we can’t carry drinks and dance at the same time.”

Thorin wonders if he’s heard that right. “Dance?” he repeats.

“Dance,” Bilbo says mildly. “You don’t dance?”

“I’m a singer,” Thorin says. That’s an even worse argument than ‘beads aren’t jewelry’.

“So?” Bilbo says. “You’re obfuscating. Finish your drink and come dance with me.”

Bilbo lets go of Thorin’s braid at long last and stands up. He faces Thorin, eyebrows raised, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. If he’s a mess on the inside the way Thorin is, he doesn’t show it. If Thorin says no, he knows Bilbo won’t hold it against him – but based on the way Bilbo’s looking at Thorin, Thorin thinks Bilbo wants him to say yes. Thorin’s rules put up a last-ditch effort to stop him, but they’re not strong enough to hold him back.

Thorin drains the rest of his drink and lets Bilbo lead him to the dance floor.

Thorin doesn’t have a problem finding the beat in a song and sticking to it, but all five of his previous girlfriends and boyfriends learned quickly that being able to stay on the beat is not the same thing as being a good dancer. Everybody else dancing seems to let their movements flow naturally, without thinking about it, while Thorin stands there trying to shuffle his feet to the rhythm and do Durin knows what with his arms. Dancing is supposed to be fun. Leave it to Thorin to find a way to make it stressful.

Bilbo, of course, is an incredible dancer. It’s baffling to Thorin – half the time Bilbo is tripping over his own feet, and the other half he’s standing on his head and contorting his body into improbable positions and dancing like it’s easier than walking in a straight line. Thorin scrolls through his list of Bilbo adjectives until he finds the one that fits this situation. Unfortunately, that adjective is hot, and Thorin can feel heat surging beneath his own skin in response.

The situation gets worse – or better, depending on how Thorin looks at – when Bilbo moves in close and puts his arms around Thorin’s neck. Thorin wishes he’d come closer. If he puts his hands on Bilbo’s waist now, it’ll look like they’re slow-shuffling at a high school dance. Then Thorin remembers that he can do something about this situation himself instead of just standing there and wishing about it. He wraps his arms around Bilbo’s waist and pulls him all the way in.

Bilbo looks surprised for a moment. His eyes are wide and his cheeks are flushed, and Thorin feels the heat from his skin through two layers of clothing. He’s breathing harder than usual, too. This is like something out of Thorin’s daydreams, the ones he’s not supposed to have, because theirs is a working relationship, and – and then Bilbo shifts his hips against Thorin’s and Thorin loses his breath and his will to put the brakes on this in a single moment.

Bilbo lets go of Thorin with one hand, but that hand doesn’t go far. It winds itself up into Thorin’s hair, catching braids and loose strands, and it’s like Bilbo’s been reading Thorin’s mind this whole time. Like he knows what Thorin’s been wanting, when he allows himself to want it at all. Or maybe it’s the simplest answer again – Bilbo’s not reading Thorin’s mind. He’s just been thinking about the same things Thorin has.

That thought sets off a chain reaction of desire and Thorin finds himself moving recklessly, independent of thought. He moves one hand from Bilbo’s waist, up into his hair – it’s exactly as soft as Thorin imagined it would be – then down the side of Bilbo’s face, tracing the outline of his jaw. That’s better than Thorin imagined it, because Thorin couldn’t picture Bilbo’s reaction to his touch and now he’s seeing it live. Thorin trails his fingers along the side of Bilbo’s neck. Bilbo tilts his head sideways, giving Thorin more room to work with, and they’re so close to each other that even the music’s not loud enough to drown out Bilbo’s sigh.

Thorin reminds himself that he’s done this sort of thing before, although based on the way his knees nearly buckle at the sound, the rest of him has forgotten that. This is not his first dance, but it’s his first dance with Bilbo, and a lot of things are different with Bilbo. If it were anyone else, Thorin would weave his fingers through the hair at the back of their neck, tilt their head back, and kiss them until they could barely stand. But that’s not a first kiss, not the kind Thorin wants, and Thorin pushes the idea away for later study. He keeps his fingers moving over Bilbo’s skin and Bilbo keeps making that sound.

“And to think,” Bilbo murmurs, out of breath, “you said you couldn’t dance.”

Thorin untangles Bilbo’s fingers from his hair and detaches himself, but only for the moment – only long enough to spin Bilbo around and draw him back in, Bilbo’s back against Thorin’s chest. “I never said that.”

Bilbo lets out an indignant little huff that turns into something else when Thorin bends his head and lets his lips brush along the exposed side of Bilbo’s neck down to his shoulder. Bilbo gasps, and while Thorin’s still trying to recover from that Bilbo leans back against him and shifts his hips in a motion that’s not a grind but can’t really be described as anything else. Thorin swallows down a sigh of his own. “You’re trying to kill me,” he says in Bilbo’s ear.

Bilbo does the same thing again – probably just to spite Thorin – and this time Thorin can’t hold back the sound he makes. Bilbo grabs Thorin’s hand and anchors it on his hip. “Stop talking.”

It keeps going like that, Thorin’s self-control fraying further and further with every move Bilbo makes, until the song changes from a hard-charging and forceful alt-rock number to something ever so slightly slower. It’s not the tempo that makes the difference, though. It’s the beat, soft and syncopated. Almost like the beating of a heart. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Thorin makes a note to ask Kili to copy this beat, but Bilbo’s just reached up and touched Thorin’s jaw, below his ear, and Thorin doesn’t think he’s going to remember much of anything that happened before that.

Bilbo extends his other arm, trying to keep up the illusion of dancing when they’re really just devouring each other on the dance floor. Thorin matches his movement. Thorin’s palm against the back of Bilbo’s hand. Thorin’s hand on Bilbo’s hip. Thorin’s mouth all over Bilbo’s skin as much as it can be while still avoiding a real kiss. He doesn’t know why he’s avoiding it, given that Bilbo kissed him earlier. But there’s a world of difference between a good-luck-with-your-show-don’t-screw-it-up peck on the cheek and whatever would happen if Thorin kissed Bilbo now. The first is arresting, at least to Thorin. He’s certain the second would be unstoppable.

Bilbo twists in Thorin’s arms so that they’re face to face – or face to chest, since Thorin is so much taller than Bilbo. Thorin feels things downshift between them. That’s probably a good thing, because if they go back to the others right now, Thorin won’t be able to pretend it was a game. Bilbo’s hands are up on Thorin’s shoulder blades. He turns his head and puts his ear against Thorin’s chest, over his heart. Somehow, this undoes Thorin more than anything else.

He wraps his arms around Bilbo and rests his cheek on the top of Bilbo’s head. Sadness rushes over him like a breaking wave as he realizes that this was his one chance. All the things they did – Thorin’s only going to get to do them once. Thorin supposes he knew that when he started this. Maybe he thought he could handle it, maybe he thought once would be enough. But once isn’t enough. A thousand times wouldn’t be enough to make Thorin feel like he won’t be losing everything the instant he lets go.

Bilbo’s fingers capture one of his braids. “Whatever you’re thinking about,” Bilbo says, “stop.”

“Why?” Thorin’s throat feels tight.

“Because it takes you away,” Bilbo says. “And I want you to stay here.”

Thorin’s never really been able to say no to Bilbo, and he doesn’t think he’s going to start now. He pushes the thoughts away as best as he can and tries to force some lightness into his voice. “Then I will.”

They stay that way until the song ends. Then Bilbo lets go of Thorin and Thorin lets go of Bilbo and they step back from each other. It feels to Thorin like he’s trying to pull two magnets apart. He tries to fix this in his memory, all of it, for tomorrow and tomorrow until his memory fails him. Thorin knows it’s not right, knows that the game-that-wasn’t is over, but he can’t resist offering Bilbo his hand. But Bilbo takes his hand. And he doesn’t let go until they’re back with the others.

* * *

“I’m telling you, Fili, it was badass,” Kili is saying. Two enormous tequila drinks with bright blue hibiscus flowers in them haven’t been enough to dampen his enthusiasm for life – or for walking down a street in Seattle at one in the morning. “Thorin said like three words to this guy and he looked like he was going to cry! What was his name again, Bilbo?”

“Theo,” Bilbo supplies. He’s wearing one of Kili’s hibiscus flowers tucked behind his ear. Kili’s wearing the other one.

“Theo,” Kili says. He jabs his elbow into Fili’s side. “That’s a bitch name. You know it’s a bitch name.”

“Get off me,” Fili says. He’s been frowning since they left the Prancing Pony, and he won’t tell anyone why. But Kili keeps at him until he relents. “Yeah, Theo’s a bitch name. And Thorin made him cry?”

“Thorin would have made him cry if I hadn’t made him leave,” Bilbo corrects. He’s leading the group, because he’s the only one with any idea of where they’re going. “In any case, it worked.”

“Whose idea was it? Yours?” Fili asks Kili.

“Bofur’s, actually,” Kili says. “I wish I’d thought of it, though – it’s genius. We should start pimping Thorin out as ex repellant. Or as, like, a fantasy date.”

“No one is going to pimp Thorin out,” Bilbo says distinctly. He glances over his shoulder at Thorin, a little smile on his face, and Thorin discovers that he finds Bilbo with flowers in his hair as distracting as every other version of Bilbo. “Thorin has a job now. As do all of you.”

“Yeah, we’re a real opening act!” Kili says. He bounces along on that thought for a few more steps; then he stops, looking confused. “Where are we going again?”

“We are getting food before going home,” Bilbo says. “You all drank quite a bit. You need to soak it up with something, or you’re all going to be sick on the bus.”

“That bus,” Dwalin rumbles from several steps behind Thorin, “has had a lot worse things than vomit happen inside it.”

“Hey!” Bofur protests. “Mind how you talk about her – she’s a lady!”

Nori and Gloin apparently take this as a song request and burst into an atonal, acapella rendition of the Tom Jones song. Once, Thorin decided to test exactly how much alcohol it takes before a musician’s ear is affected. The answer – three drinks, which is three drinks less than those two had. Thorin resists the urge to stuff his fingers in his ears.

Bilbo turns around and points at them. “See? Case in point. The last time you ate was nine hours ago, and those of you who were throwing up backstage didn’t even get to digest it. Food.”

“Do we have to walk?” Bombur asks.

“It’s food!” Bilbo explodes. “None of you have ever turned down food before!”

“That is a fair point,” Gandalf says from the back. Gandalf isn’t drunk – Gandalf is very, very high, courtesy of some homemade pot brownies. He must have brought one along. Or three. “Bilbo has not steered you wrong yet. I advise you to trust him.”

“Yes. Thank you,” Bilbo says. “Now, while we’re walking, all of you amuse yourselves and try to figure out who’s the most drunk.”

Thorin has a moment to appreciate just how well Bilbo knows the band; the quickest way to get them to do anything is to turn it into a competition. Then Thorin starts thinking about how well Bilbo knows him, how much Thorin would give for one more dance, and before he knows it he’s unmoored again.

“Well, I think Thorin’s the most drunk!” Dwalin is saying, and Thorin jumps. “Look at him – he’s weaving all over the sidewalk.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Oin says. “And his face is red, too. That’s a sign.”

“I had two drinks,” Thorin protests. All in the interest of accuracy. “How many did you have, Oin?”

“Just one,” Oin says proudly.

“That’s only because you snuck around finishing other people’s drinks!” Dori says.

Kili stops walking and turns around, dragging Fili with him. “Dude,” he says, appalled. “That is, like, the textbook definition of a party foul. Also, gross.”

“Why is it gross?” Fili asks.

“There’s spit,” Kili says defensively. “Spit is gross. If you drink from someone else’s drink, it’s like you’re drinking their spit. Like making out, except less fun.”

Fili doubles over, laughing. “Fellas, is it gay to drink from another man’s drink?”

“No,” Bilbo says. Thorin glances at him, trying to decide if he’s offended by Fili’s comment, and therefore, if Thorin needs to smack Fili. But Bilbo’s smiling still. “Trust me. I would know.”

Fili and Kili exchange a glance. “Fair enough,” Kili says, and just like that, they’re back to trailing after Bilbo – for about three seconds, and then they stop dead.

Thorin, who assumed that they were just going to keep walking, runs into them. He swears. “You can’t just stop in the middle of a sidewalk!”

Neither of his nephews are listening to him. “Fili,” Kili says, voice hushed with awe, “did we die? Is this heaven?”

“If this was heaven there’d be more girls,” Fili says, equally awestruck. “But it’s an easy mistake to make.”

Thorin steps around them to try and get a look at whatever’s stunned his nephews into stillness. He looks further down the block. There’s nothing there except a bus stop, two dingy apartment buildings, and a drive-in restaurant. “What are you talking about?”

“Bilbo,” Kili says, instead of answering Thorin, “is this real? Am I actually looking at –”

“A burger restaurant whose slogan is ‘Eat a bag of Dick’s’? Yes,” Bilbo says. He sounds exhausted. “Yes, you are.”

Kili falls to his knees on the sidewalk, hands clasped in prayer. “Glory hallelujah, there is a god. I want to get married here!”

Thorin snorts. “I doubt your one true love, wherever she is, will be all right with that.”

“If she’s not, then she’s not the girl for me,” Kili avows.

“Forget getting married, I want to be buried here,” Fili says. “The way my love life’s going, you all might as well do it right now.”

Kili seems to intend to crawl the rest of the way to the restaurant on his hands and knees. Bilbo hurries after him, and the rest of the band follows him, either with the goal of preventing it or of filming it. Thorin takes the opportunity to collar Fili. Fili won’t meet his eyes. “Look, what happened back there?” Thorin asks. “It seemed like it was going well.”

“She didn’t like me,” Fili says.

“She seemed like she liked you,” Thorin says. He recalls the girl smiling quite a bit.

“She only liked band me,” Fili says. “Not _me_ me. I thought it was going well, too, but then she started talking about how her friends would never believe her and would I take a picture with her and would I sign her bra –”

“Please tell me you didn’t.”

“I didn’t! I’m not Kili,” Fili says. He sighs. “Maybe Kili’s right. Maybe this whole Tinder thing is overrated.”

“Do _not_ tell Kili that he’s right,” Thorin orders. “If you do, none of us will ever hear the end of it.”

Fili looks up at him. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” Thorin asks impatiently. The others are getting away from them. It looks like Dwalin, Nori, Gloin, and Bofur have picked Kili up and are carrying him along. The hibiscus flower is still tucked behind his ear.

“Make sure people who like you don’t just like you because you’re famous.”

“I was never famous before,” Thorin says. “And we’re not famous now.”

“We’ve got a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, Bruce Springsteen retweeted our songs, and we just got booked as the opening act for a band that routinely sells out venues with a thousand seats,” Fili says. “We’re famous now. At least, a little bit.”

Thorin supposes he’s right. He also supposes that he is the person in the band least-equipped to answer this question, because he’s head-over-heels for someone who this conversation doesn’t apply to in the slightest. If Bilbo likes Thorin at all, it’s not because he’s famous. When Bilbo met Thorin, Thorin was no one. “Well, there’s one way.”

Fili perks up a bit. “Yeah?”

“Do something stupid,” Thorin says. “Something enormously, awe-inspiringly stupid. If they’re still around when it’s over, they like you for more reasons than just fame.”

Thorin pulled this piece of advice out of thin air, but it seems to resonate with Fili. He’s nodding, reflective. Thorin gives him a little shove and propels him in the direction of the restaurant. Then he follows along behind, thinking, as always, about Bilbo.

There are at least seven order windows at the drive in, and Thorin’s band takes up all of them. The food is alarmingly cheap, and arrives extremely fast. At some point, Bilbo starts shooing members of the band away when they come back up to order a third round of who knows what. Off to the side, Gandalf is picking his way through a bag that seems to contain only French fries. Thorin moves to go stand by him, but then Bilbo says his name and Thorin freezes on the spot. “You need to eat, too,” Bilbo says. “Come here.”

Thorin joins Bilbo at the order window and manages to order himself some food. But while he’s scrambling for his wallet to pay, he spots Bilbo handing the cashier a ten. Thorin gives up on his wallet. He doesn’t want to make a scene. Besides, he’s seen this before. “Discretionary fund?”

“No,” Bilbo says. He looks at Thorin, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Thorin feels like there’s something he’s not picking up on, but two drinks and a dance with Bilbo have stripped Thorin of his ability to think clearly. Thorin’s food – although maybe it’s Bilbo’s, since Bilbo paid for it – arrives, and Thorin’s still caught in Bilbo’s gaze.

The cashier clears his throat. “Uh, order up.”

“Thank you,” Bilbo says, smiling. He picks up the milkshake, hands Thorin the bag, and starts off towards Gandalf. Thorin follows him.

Thorin doesn’t realize how hungry he is until he opens the bag containing the food. He’s sort of embarrassed that Bilbo’s there watching him tear into it like a rabid animal, but he’s also too hungry to care. Once the food’s gone, Bilbo hands him the milkshake. “I told you. You were hungry.”

“You were right,” Thorin says. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then immediately wishes he hadn’t. “How did you know about this place?”

“I came here a lot in college. It’s one of the only places in the city that’s open late,” Bilbo says. “And I thought Fili and Kili would get a kick out of it.”

Fili and Kili, for whatever reason, are lying on the ground in the parking lot. It’s a good thing there aren’t any cars around. Balin is standing nearby, holding two milkshakes and looking very unhappy. Kili flails his arms and legs. “Baptize me, Balin!”

“Uh,” Bilbo says. Thorin snickers into his milkshake. “Shouldn’t we, uh, do something about that?”

“Balin won’t let them,” Thorin says. “Neither will Bofur – if they’re covered in milkshake, he won’t let them get on the bus.”

“Oh. Good.” Bilbo rubs the back of his neck. He clears his throat, then coughs into his fist. He looks – nervous? Thorin finds out why a second later. “Thorin, I paid for your food because that’s what people do on a date.”

Thorin nearly chokes. “We were on a fake date.”

Bilbo gives him a look that’s two parts affection, one part exasperation. “No, we weren’t.”

Thorin doesn’t know what to say to him. Bilbo is apparently fine with leaving it at that. He reaches up and untucks Kili’s second hibiscus flower from behind his ear, only to place it behind Thorin’s. Thorin just stares at him, and Bilbo fusses with his hair for a minute, arranging it this way and that, before sitting back. “There.”

“I look absurd,” Thorin says.

“It matches your eyes.”

Thorin doesn’t know how to respond to that, or to the thought that Bilbo’s been noticing his eyes. He focuses a little too hard on Fili and Kili’s parking lot antics so he doesn’t have to think about it. He offers Bilbo the rest of the milkshake, and Bilbo takes it. After a while Thorin offers his hand. Bilbo takes that, too.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos, and special thanks to adiaphora, wars_we_fought, LostGryphin, this_fish, hush_over_the_night, and Arrowsboi for leaving comments! As always, it's wonderful to hear your thoughts.


	12. Chapter 12

The bus is moving along at a crawl in Seattle’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the bandmembers are uniformly bored out of their skulls. It’s also raining, and the windows of the bus are steaming up. Thorin caught Kili writing ‘orgy bus’ in the steam and made him wipe it out. They’re semi-professional now. The last thing Thorin wants is one of Kili’s practical jokes winding up on YouTube. The band’s status isn’t the only thing that’s changed since they got to Seattle. Other things have changed, too.

They didn’t have a show in Portland, originally, but their headliners do. That means they wound up leaving Seattle three days before they were supposed to. Thorin found himself strangely sad to pack up and leave the yellow house. It’s the first place he’s lived in three years that felt even slightly like home.

“You can come back, you know,” Bilbo said when he saw Thorin gazing back at the house as the bus crawled slowly up the street.

“It’s not my house,” Thorin pointed out.

“I mean it,” Bilbo said. “You are welcome any time.”

Thorin almost overthought it; then he practiced taking things at face-value instead. That’s one of the things that’s changed. And he’s still practicing it now, because Bilbo’s sitting on his side of the aisle, and right now he’s fast asleep with his head on Thorin’s shoulder. Thorin’s notebook is on his lap, but he’s right-handed, and if he moves his arm too much, Bilbo might wake up. Thorin glances back over the top of the seat at the rest of the band. Kili sees him and points at the back of Bilbo’s seat, mouthing the words. _Bilbo_?

Thorin doesn’t answer. He’s pretty sure his face turns red. Kili takes this as an affirmative, flashes a double thumbs-up, and sinks down in his seat. Thorin looks back out the window before anyone else in the band can give their thoughts on the situation.

No one will admit that they saw Thorin and Bilbo dancing at the Prancing Pony, but all of them are acting like they know something. Not to Bilbo – they treat Bilbo the same as they always have – but to Thorin, who’s beginning to feel like he can’t round a corner without being confronted with someone who wants to give him advice about what Balin euphemistically terms his ‘predicament’. Most of them seem to think it’s not a complicated predicament at all, and most of their advice is completely unhelpful. If Thorin hears one more person tell him to lock that down, he’s going to lose his mind.

Bilbo shifts in his sleep, and before he can think better of it, Thorin wraps his arm around Bilbo’s shoulders. He feels Bilbo’s breath against the side of his neck, and that makes him lose his mind in an entirely different fashion. Thorin is very, very glad that Bilbo’s asleep. Bilbo has an uncanny ability to read everything on Thorin’s mind with one look at his face, and Thorin is thinking over a lot of things Bilbo does not need to know about – at least not yet.

Thorin keeps having dreams about the dance. Dreams about Bilbo’s hand tangled in his hair and his fingers brushing Thorin’s jaw and his hips shifting back against Thorin’s. It seems like whenever Thorin has a second of spare time on his hands, he’s thinking about Bilbo’s soft skin, and how much he’d like to go about exploring the rest of it. Bilbo said it was a date. Thorin, feeling sentimental and ridiculous, kept the hibiscus flower until it dried up and crumbled. He wears the beads Bilbo gave him every day, not just when he’s performing. Sometimes, when there’s a quiet moment, Bilbo will play with them, and it always hypnotizes Thorin. It would be perfect, except for two things: Thorin hasn’t kissed Bilbo yet, and Bilbo doesn’t know.

Most of the band doesn’t know, either. Balin does, and maybe Dwalin, but Kili and Fili don’t. They’re safe, so there’s no need for them to worry. Thorin thinks Gandalf does, too, but Gandalf’s never brought it up, something for which Thorin is extremely grateful. But beyond them, and his sister, and his father somewhere out there in the world – and Smaug, who keeps the source of his influence over Thror a secret – there’s no one else who knows the deadline coming up on him. No one will express an opinion one way or another. Thorin almost wishes they would. It’s better than being left alone with his own thoughts on the subject.

This subject is where all of Thorin’s daydreaming comes to a screeching halt, because he knows what the family illness does to people, and if Thorin cares about Bilbo, he won’t make him watch. He won’t trick Bilbo into caring about him. It wrenches at Thorin’s heart. The only way to protect Bilbo is for him to know now, so he can leave now, before he gets any deeper in.

But Thorin can’t make himself do it. He can’t make himself give Bilbo up, even though it would be better for both of them if he did.

Bilbo stirs against Thorin’s shoulder. “What time is it?” he says sleepily.

“A little after ten,” Thorin says. “We’re still in traffic.”

“Sounds about right.” Bilbo yawns. “If we wanted to miss Seattle traffic, we should have left at midnight last night. I don’t think there are many moose for Bofur to hit between here and Portland.”

The moose story is one of Bilbo’s favorite stories about the band’s tour before he arrived. Another is the spider-infested truck-stop bathroom in West Virginia, which involves a lot of naked bandmembers running around and screeching. He likes hearing about the band’s previous names, too – about who came up with them, and why. He seems to have grasped why the names kept changing all on his own.

“We’ll still make it in time, won’t we?” Thorin says. It’s only their third show with the headliners, and Thorin does not want to be late.

“Of course,” Bilbo says. He blinks slowly up at Thorin. When he does that, Thorin forgets every reason why he has to let Bilbo go, and remembers all the reasons that he can’t – not the least of which is that it will break Thorin’s heart. “We’ll get through Sea-Tac and Olympia and from there it’s pretty much a straight shot.”

Thorin nods. His head hurts. In fact, it’s been hurting on and off all morning. He puts it down to lack of sleep and tries to distract himself. With Bilbo sitting right there, it’s easy. “You said you were from Portland.”

“I am,” Bilbo says. “The hospital I was born in is a few streets away from tonight’s venue. My grandparents lived there. It’s a much bigger city now than it was then.”

“Were you close with your grandparents?” Thorin asks. He’s setting himself up for the perfect opportunity to tell Bilbo the truth, but he’s got no confidence that he’ll take it. Thorin can be extremely selfish on occasion, and apparently this is one such occasion.

“Not especially. They died when I was four,” Bilbo says. He shifts against Thorin, drawing closer, and Thorin’s heart lurches into an unsteady rhythm. “I suppose I don’t need to ask about yours.”

“My grandmother died before I was born,” Thorin says. “My sister says she was a good person. And everyone in the industry knows what my grandfather was.”

Thorin loved his grandfather, even when he hated him. Thorin wanted his grandfather to be proud of him, but he wasn’t, because Thorin wanted to be an artist and not an executive, because Thorin was bisexual and not straight, because Thorin wasn’t what he wanted or expected out of a grandson. Thror was never good at hiding his emotions, and from the time he was thirteen years old Thorin knew what his grandfather was thinking when he looked at him: What a shame. What a waste.

And up until a month and a half ago, Thror was right about Thorin. The only reason he’s not is sitting next to Thorin with his head on Thorin’s shoulder.

“I’ve heard,” Bilbo says. “My boss knew him. He knew your father, too.”

Of course – Thrain took over the family business, trying desperately to save it after Thror and Smaug ran it into the ground. “Yes,” Thorin says after a moment. “My father.”

“Have you heard anything from him?” Bilbo asks.

Thorin doesn’t want to answer that. Doesn’t want to tell Bilbo that he was so angry with his father that he barely looked for him when he vanished. Once again, Bilbo provides a distraction – he’s playing with Thorin’s braids again. Thorin clears his throat. “If you want me to keep talking, you should probably stop doing that.”

“Oh,” Bilbo says. He lowers his voice, but there’s a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. More of a smirk, really. “You like it when I do this?”

“Isn’t that why you keep doing it?” Thorin asks.

Bilbo’s fingers run up the length of one of Thorin’s braids, and on the way back down, he catches a few loose strands of hair, too. “I’ve been doing it because I like it,” he corrects, but his smile is such that Thorin thinks he’s not telling the whole truth. He’s proven right a second later. “And because you blush every time I do.”

Thorin is seized with the desire to hide his face – it always reveals more than he wants it to. But he likes the way Bilbo’s looking at him too much to look away. It’s so strange to Thorin. He’s been less intimate with people he dated for a year than he is right now, talking with someone he hasn’t even kissed. And that’s why it’s hard to draw back from Bilbo, even though Thorin knows he should. Because Thorin can’t give up being impressed and stunned and amazed by him. Because Thorin could listen to him talk about all of the facts he knows and his sweaters and yoga or anything else forever. Because Thorin can’t give up seeing and being seen.

When Bilbo speaks again, he sounds puzzled. Puzzled, then worried. His hands are still on Thorin’s braids. “You’re warm. Do you feel all right?”

Thorin thinks about his headache, then decides not to mention it. Besides, thinking about it makes it hurt worse. “If I’m warm, it’s probably your fault. Sitting here and doing that.”

“It’s my fault?” Bilbo lifts his hands up and away. And he sits up, slipping out from beneath Thorin’s arm. “I should probably not be doing this, then.”

Thorin makes an inarticulate, frustrated sound, catches Bilbo around the waist, and pulls him back. “Oh,” Bilbo says, and now he sounds a little breathless. “I didn’t know you felt so strongly about it.”

Not for the first time, Thorin wishes that they weren’t on the bus. Or that they were the only people on the bus. Or that they were somewhere, anywhere, alone. “If you’re still tired, go back to sleep,” he tells Bilbo. “You’re always busy on show days.”

“There’s a lot to do,” Bilbo says. He yawns again “Wrangling all thirteen of you, to start with.”

“We aren’t easy to wrangle?” Thorin pretends surprise at this.

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Bilbo says, “but there are a lot of you, and about half of you like to wander off when I’m not paying attention. You know how many times I’ve gotten Kili backstage five seconds before the show starts.”

Thorin never doubts that Bilbo will find Kili, and Bilbo’s never failed to do so, but it still makes Thorin nervous. “You’re good with them. Not just Kili and Fili, everybody in the band,” he tells Bilbo. Bilbo looks surprised, and pleased. Surprised and pleased and sleepy. “Go to sleep.”

Bilbo tucks his head against Thorin’s neck again. “You still feel warm.”

“I run warm,” Thorin says. Thorin runs warm, and Bilbo runs cold; when he takes Thorin’s hands, his hands are always icy. “Sleep.”

Bilbo nods, and Thorin tugs him just a little bit closer. He goes back to staring out the window and listening to Bilbo’s breathing even out into sleep. One of his ankles is crossing Thorin’s. It lurks in the back of Thorin’s mind, the thing he’s not telling Bilbo. But he can’t and won’t deal with it right now. They’ve got a long, slow ride ahead of them, and a show tonight. Thorin might as well take this moment of peace while it’s here. Even if it won’t be here for long.

* * *

By the time they pull into the venue in Portland, Bilbo is well-rested and Thorin’s headache is a thousand times worse. He seeks out Oin, loads himself up with a dose each of Advil and Tylenol, and decides that's probably the best he can do. Lying down with his eyes closed would help, but there’s no time for that. The traffic on the way down has cost them time they don’t really have. Load-in, sound-check, sound-check with the headliners. Thorin doesn’t even have a set list. Bilbo sends Gandalf to their hotel to check in – they have a hotel this time. They’re moving up in the world.

“Thorin, are you okay?” Kili asks as they’re dragging one of the bigger amps onto the stage. “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” Thorin says. “I have a lot to do.”

“I’ve got this idea,” Kili says. Thorin raises his eyebrows – by Durin, even that hurts – and Kili elaborates. “I’ve been thinking, and I think we should all get matching tattoos.”

This is so far from what Thorin was expecting him to say that it takes him almost a minute to respond. “What? Why?”

“It would be cool,” Kili says. “I was thinking the band’s logo, maybe. On our shoulders. So we’d all match.”

Thorin doesn’t think this answers the what or why questions, but he’s too out of sorts to push the point. And he doesn’t have the energy to go nine rounds with Kili over matching tattoos. He decides to outsource the problem. “Run it by the others. See what they think.”

“Yes!” Kili pumps a fist and drops his half of the amp. All of its weight falls on Thorin, whose arms are starting to hurt. This must be some headache, if it’s making it hard for him to lift an amp. “Thanks, Thorin!”

“Pick. It. Up.” Thorin speaks through clenched teeth. Kili, oblivious, hoists the amp again, and the endless work of prepping for a show begins once more.

Thorin is still working on the set list forty-five minutes before The Lonely Mountains are supposed to go on. His head feels foggy, and he can’t focus all that well, but putting together set lists is something he’s had a lot of time to practice. He’s had a lot less practice opening shows for established bands who sell out enormous venues. He fills in song after song, hands it to Balin to check over, then sends Ori out on stage to tape it down. Now he has half an hour to pull himself together for a show that is almost certainly not going to go well.

Balin sneaks up on Thorin while he’s alternating between drinking water and picking at his food. “You don’t look well,” Balin observes. “Not at all.”

“I’m fine,” Thorin says again. “And even if I wasn’t fine, I’d still have to play. Don’t worry about it.”

Balin looks unhappy about this, but there’s not really anything he can do about it; Thorin’s right. The show must go on. Balin puts a hand on his shoulder. “Try to eat something.”

Gandalf comes back with the news that they’re checked into their hotel. Thorin’s headache hasn’t quite sucked the joy out of performing, but he’s looking forward to going to sleep a lot more than he usually does. Gandalf is saying something to Balin about the number of rooms they’ve gotten, but Thorin can’t focus on it. He’s too busy running through all his songs in his head and trying not to think about how tired he is, or how much his head hurts. It’s Bilbo’s turn to man the merchandise table, so Thorin doesn’t see him before he goes onstage. He’s almost too far gone to care. Almost. But not quite.

Whatever energy Thorin has left goes into the show. His throat starts hurting after the third song in the set, and partway through he starts feeling dizzy. Thorin doesn’t know if Balin’s told the band that he’s not feeling well or if they’ve all just picked up on it on their own, but they back Thorin up much more strongly than they usually do. Fili cuts his harmony on a few songs to sing in unison with Thorin, because Thorin’s voice starts to waver about halfway through the set. Dwalin and Nori and Kili, the rhythm section, slow the pace on the fastest songs ever so slightly – the audience doesn’t notice, but Thorin does.

When they take their bows at the end of their set, there’s a lump in Thorin’s throat for more reasons than one. As soon as they’re all in the green room to wait out the show, Dwalin makes Thorin sit down while Oin comes over to examine him. Oin is one of the few bandmembers who had another career before getting into music – he was a registered nurse, and he’s the one who takes care of the band’s various bumps and bruises. Thorin’s never been on the receiving end of his attentions, but nearly everyone else has, and they all trust his judgment.

“Sit up straight. Look at me,” Oin orders. Then he starts poking around on Thorin’s neck, underneath his jaw, with both hands. Thorin can’t stop himself from wincing. “Swollen lymph nodes. That’s not good. Gloin, thermometer!”

A thought comes into Thorin’s head, foggy and useless. That doesn’t stop him from saying it. “That had better not be a rectal thermometer.”

Somewhere in the background, Kili snorts. Oin ignores him. “No,” he says to Thorin. He sets a timer on his watch. “What do you think I am? Open your mouth.”

Thorin is not happy about sitting there with a thermometer under his tongue while the rest of the band stares at him. Worse, Oin keeps asking him questions that he can’t answer with the damn thing in his mouth. “Do you feel tired?”

Thorin nods. Nodding hurts. Oin continues. “You had a headache earlier. Do you still have it?”

Thorin nods, again. This is getting ridiculous. “What about aches and pains?” Oin persists. ‘Does your throat hurt?”

More nodding. Thorin spots Fili in the background, looking worried – and Kili, typing something on his phone with a look of intense concentration on his face. Why? “Thorin,” Oin says, and Thorin looks back up at him. “How long has this been going on?”

That’s not a question Thorin can answer with either nodding or shaking his head. He raises his eyebrows at Oin and gives a shrug that makes his shoulders hurt. Oin’s timer beeps and he extracts the thermometer from Thorin’s mouth. Then he winces.

“Nice bedside manner,” Thorin says. Dwalin snorts.

Oin pretends he didn’t hear this. Or maybe he actually didn’t hear it – he’s been vaguely hard of hearing for as long as Thorin’s known him. “This isn’t good,” he says to no one in particular. “He’s loaded up on painkillers that should bring down a fever, but his temperature’s still 103.”

“Isn’t that kind of high?” Ori asks.

“It is,” Oin says, and everyone else starts looking alarmed. Thorin wasn’t kidding – Oin really needs to work on his bedside manner, or the rest of the band is going to be too worried to let him go out onstage for the encore. “Thorin, I’m sure this is a stupid question, but did you get your flu shot?”

Thorin swallows. It hurts, but then again, so does everything at this point. “Flu shot,” he repeats. “No.”

“You didn’t?” Oin’s voice starts scaling up. “I made everyone else do it!”

“Then why didn’t you make me do it?” Thorin asks. He wishes everyone would stop being so loud.

“Because I thought you, of all people, would have the sense to do it on your own,” Oin says. “Did you get it last year? Or the year before?”

“I never get sick,” Thorin says, acutely aware that this makes him sound like an idiot. Oin throws up his hands.

“On the bright side,” Balin says, wading into the fray and putting a hand on Oin’s shoulder, “this means that Thorin can’t infect any of us. Well done, Oin. Now, if you please, tell us what we should do next. Does he need a doctor?”

“What about antibiotics?” Kili pipes up.

“The flu is a virus, not a bacteria,” Oin says. “Antibiotics are for bacteria. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about the flu. Typical protocol is to drink lots of fluids, eat when you can, and rest.”

“Rest? That’s not going to work,” Thorin says. “We’ve got four shows in the next week!”

“And you’re going to rest before and after every single one of them.” Dwalin crosses his arms over his chest. “No arguments. We’ll knock you out if we have to.”

“No, don’t knock him out,” Oin says absently. He’s sanitizing the thermometer. “We don’t have a sure way to wake him up in time.”

Thorin does not appreciate the implication that they’d knock him out if they could be certain he’d wake up on schedule. He stands up. “We still have two songs to perform.”

“Yes we do,” Balin says, shoving him back down, “and you are going to rest until it’s time to go perform them.”

“Balin –”

“No arguments,” Balin says, sounding uncannily like his younger brother. Thorin sinks back in his chair, defeated. Balin is one of the few people, other than Gandalf, who Thorin regularly loses arguments to. It’s not worth fighting about. And besides, Thorin feels awful. Maybe lying down for a little bit wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Thorin spends the rest of the time before the last songs lying on the green room floor with his jacket over his face to block out the light. It’s just his luck to get sick at the worst possible time. When he thinks about it, he realizes that he was strangely tired and sore yesterday, too. Thorin tries to remember the last time he got sick. It was a while ago – three or four years, at least – when he was still splitting time between Vail and his apartment in Denver. It was a nicer apartment back then.

Thorin’s girlfriend at the time wanted to come take care of him, but Thorin wouldn’t let her. He was vomiting all over his apartment and he didn’t want her to see him like that. He also didn’t want to infect her with whatever he had. Thorin spent three days crawling from his bed to the bathroom and back again, only emerging from the apartment when he was all the way better. She’d given him a hard time about that, and he sort of deserved it. _Why don’t you just let people help you_?

Thorin doesn't know why he doesn't let people help him. No, he does - the quickest way to lose people you care about is to ask too much of them, and Thorin's always asking a lot in one way and another._ Believe in me. Join my band. Sing my songs. Get on this bus and drive around the country trying to stay ahead of an obscenely wealthy sociopath who's bent on ruining your career_. With all that on board, he's not about to ask people to look after him when he's ill. He can do that himself. Usually.

He hears the bandmembers talking. Dwalin and Balin, he thinks, and maybe Bofur. “He looks like shit,” one of them is saying.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have a show tomorrow night. It wouldn’t surprise me if he sleeps for about eighteen hours.” That one’s Balin, Thorin thinks.

“At least he can still sing. It could be worse. He could be coughing.” A pause. “Oin says that’s good. It means he’s not spraying virus all over the place.”

“He’s not gonna die or anything?” Definitely Bofur.

“He’s twenty-nine. Twenty-nine-year-olds don’t die of the flu,” Dwalin says. He sounds annoyed, but Thorin finds it oddly gratifying to know that Bofur was that worried about him. “More likely he’s going to be bitchy and tired for the next two weeks.”

Thorin tugs the jacket down off his face. “Is that really so much different than usual?”

All three of them look askance at him. “Yes,” Bofur says.

“Go back to sleep,” Balin adds.

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“I don’t care. We still have half an hour until the encore and you’re going to spend it resting.” Dwalin glares down at Thorin. On his best day Thorin would think twice about starting a fight with Dwalin, and today is far from his best day. He pulls the jacket back over his face and closes his eyes.

They do actually have to wake him up for the encore. Thorin stumbles out onstage, ruins his voice, takes a bow, and then stumbles back off. He hopes the headliners didn’t notice that he’s about five minutes away from keeling over. Every time he thinks he’s gotten the headache under control, it gets worse, or else something new goes wrong. His back hurts, and so do his legs. He just wants to lie down.

Gandalf and Bilbo are both backstage. Bilbo’s eyes are sharp with worry. Thorin remembers Kili frantically texting someone, and now he realizes it was probably Bilbo. Which means Bilbo’s probably been sitting out in the audience, worried, for the past two and a half hours. When Thorin’s skull doesn’t feel like it’s about to split open, he and Kili are going to have a talk about what information needs to be immediately shared with their agent and Thorin’s not-quite-boyfriend.

“Good show, everyone,” Gandalf says. “As usual.”

Gandalf is being very nice; Thorin knows this show wasn’t up to par. If it looks like it was, it’s only thanks to the band, covering up for Thorin’s mistakes. Thorin wishes he hadn’t let them down tonight. “How’d we do on merchandise?”

“Like we have been doing. Very, very well,” Gandalf says. “Having individual band members sign t-shirts was a very good idea, Kili. People do have their favorites.”

There’s a glint in Kili’s eye that Thorin doesn’t like. “Who sold the most?”

“We are not turning this into a competition,” Thorin says loudly. It’s not going to be good for morale if everyone’s worried about whose signed t-shirts are selling the fastest. “All of you were excellent tonight. And we need to load out.”

“Oh, there’s no ‘we’ involved,” Bilbo says. He sets down his backpack on the floor and rolls up the sleeves on his sweater. “You are going to rest. I’m going to help with load-out.”

Thorin stares at him. “No.”

“Yes,” Bilbo says. He keeps looking at Thorin. There are worried lines around his mouth, but his eyes have softened. Even in his current state, Thorin can’t help but be entranced by him. “You’re sick. You’re going to get on the bus and rest, and the rest of us are going to load out.”

This situation started out inconvenient – now it’s nothing short of appalling. Thorin is not so incapacitated that he’s going to sit there and let Bilbo do his job for him. “I’m fine. I can do it.”

“No argument,” Dwalin says. “The show’s over. We can knock you out now.”

Thorin glares at him. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wanna bet?”

“No one is knocking anyone else out,” Bilbo says. He rolls up his sleeves again – then, on second thought, takes off his sweater, revealing a short-sleeved, white collared shirt underneath. Thorin has never seen him do that before, and although he’s used to the sweaters, he’s not going to complain. Bilbo has nice wrists. And very nice arms. Thorin can’t tell if the fact that he’s still noticing this is a sign that he’s not really sick or just an expression of how attractive he finds Bilbo. “Someone take Thorin back to the bus, and then come back and tell me what he usually does.”

Kili gets assigned to take Thorin back to the bus, but Fili comes along, too. They seem to be under the impression that Thorin’s going to make a break for it, to the point where they’re discussing whether or not to lock him in. “I’m not going to run,” Thorin says pointlessly. “I wouldn’t get very far even if I did.”

Kili pretends he didn’t hear this. “Okay, so we won’t lock him in. Fili, you have water, right?”

“And snacks,” Fili confirms. He looks at Thorin, who’s shambling along between his nephews and feeling ashamed of himself. “Uncle Thorin, why do you look like you just got in trouble?”

“Well, we all did just kind of put him in time-out,” Kili points out, snickering. Then he sobers up and turns to Thorin. “Oin says you have to drink this whole water bottle by the time we get back, or else he’s gonna stick a funnel in your mouth and pour it straight down your throat.”

That’s an unpleasant enough prospect that Thorin decides to just comply without further protests. Maybe it will help. He climbs onto the bus and into his usual seat, using his jacket as a blanket. It’s gotten cold – or maybe Thorin just has chills, because he has the flu. The flu. Thorin can think of a few things more embarrassing than this, but not many. He looks up at his nephews. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Fili and Kili exchange a glance. “What are you sorry about?”

“This.” Thorin gestures at himself. “Being useless. Forcing all of you to do my job.”

“You’d do the same thing for us,” Fili says. “If one of us were sick, you wouldn’t let us do anything until we were better.”

“And not just us – the band and Gandalf and Bilbo too,” Kili points out. He sets the snack bag down on the seat next to Thorin, then nudges it closer. “We’re not doing anything weird. Just what you taught us.”

Sometimes, in the midst of their silliness and wandering off and beer-drinking and talking incessantly about girls, Thorin forgets how proud he is of his nephews. This isn’t one of those times. Thorin feels his throat close. “Thank you.”

Oddly enough, this doesn’t seem to reassure them. “He said thank you,” Fili says in an undertone to Kili. “And he looks like he’s gonna cry.”

“I know. He must really be sick.”

“I can hear you,” Thorin says, although he knows that doesn’t matter to them.

“We’ll be back soon,” Fili says. “Remember about the water.”

Thorin nods. He doesn’t doubt that Oin is ready and willing to carry out his threats, and the only way tonight could be worse is if it ends with being forcibly hydrated by the band’s nurse and musical saw player. The door of the bus closes behind them. Thorin draws his jacket up over his shoulders, tilts his head against the window, and waits for the others to come back.

Thorin discovers that load-out takes a lot longer when you’re not doing anything. He wonders if Bilbo and Gandalf get this bored every time, watching Thorin and the others run back and forth between the venue and the bus, carrying cords and amps and mics and instruments. Bilbo seems to be holding his own amidst the others. Thorin sees him carrying an amp on one pass, then a roll of cord on the next. Next time Thorin spots him he’s crouched on the ground beside Kili, helping him repack his drums in their various cases. Bilbo is unfailingly helpful – even though he trips on his own feet multiple times.

Thorin’s finished most of the water bottle by the time the band starts boarding the bus, and he hastily chugs the rest when Oin comes by. Oin gives him a hard look, peering around as though he thinks Thorin might have poured the water out elsewhere instead of drinking it. Finally, he gives a curt nod, then proceeds along the aisle to his own seat. Every so often, though, he glances back at Thorin with a look that suggests that even though Thorin is following orders, he’s still on thin ice.

Bilbo sits on the opposite side of the aisle from Thorin, probably because Fili’s snack bag is taking up most of his usual seat. Thorin thinks about how cold Bilbo’s hands are, and how nice one of them would feel on his forehead or his cheek or against the side of his neck. Thorin’s face feels hot. The rest of him feels cold. He keeps looking at Bilbo, waiting for Bilbo to look at him. When he does, the slightest of smiles on his face, it feels like a weight’s been pulled off of Thorin’s shoulders.

Once the bus is underway, Bilbo stands up. “All right, everyone,” he says, and it’s a mark of how much they respect Bilbo that the rest of the band shuts up instantly. “We’re staying in a hotel tonight. Not at a campsite, not in a house – in a hotel. Don’t break anything. Don’t be too loud. If you order room service, try not to be excessive about it.”

“Wait, there’s room service?” Dori says.

Based on the look on Bilbo’s face, he’s regretting saying that last bit. “Room service,” Kili says dreamily. “Do you think they have chicken wings?”

It looks like Bilbo is having a hard time not rolling his eyes. “Moving on,” Bilbo says, “we have seven rooms, all on the same floor. Six two-person rooms, one three-person room. I assume you can organize that yourselves?”

“Dwalin and Gandalf and I have the three,” Balin says.

“Excellent. You all are in room 309.” Bilbo produces three key cards, rubber-banded together, from his backpack, and passes them down the aisle to Balin. Then he continues with the roll-call. “Kili, Fili, I assume you want to share?”

“Yes,” Fili says, and Kili echoes him a moment later. Bilbo throws them their key cards.

“Room 311. Who’s next?”

And so it continues. This is reminding Thorin of something, but he can’t think of what, and a surge of panic wells up the back of his throat. He tries to calm himself, reminds himself that he’s sick and not thinking straight, but it doesn’t work. Whatever he’s thinking of happened recently. Too recently for him to forget. Why can’t he remember?

“Wait, stop,” Oin says, and Thorin forces himself to key back in to what the others are saying. “Someone capable needs to stay with Thorin. Look after him.”

“Someone is,” Bilbo says, and that’s when Thorin remembers. He looks up at Bilbo, and Bilbo glances at him from under his eyelashes before turning back to the others. Thorin is seized with the suspicion that Bilbo did this on purpose. Maybe he did it before he knew Thorin was sick. But even so, Bilbo wanted to share a room with Thorin, and apparently still wants to, even though Thorin is a walking bioweapon at this point.

“It should be me,” Oin says, even though he’s already been assigned room 310 with Gloin. “I’m the nurse.”

Thorin has never wanted to kill anyone, with the glaring exception of Smaug, as much as he wants to kill Oin in this moment. Apparently he’s not the only one – someone kicks the back of Oin’s seat, and Oin twists around indignantly. “You are,” Bilbo agrees, ignoring the theatrics, “but you’re also a performer. We all may have gotten our flu shots, but there’s a chance Thorin has a different strain, and we can’t risk the rest of you getting sick.”

“We can’t risk you getting sick, either,” Balin points out.

“If I get sick, I can do my job from the bus,” Bilbo says. He pauses. “Or from my bed. In any case, I can do what I have to do while I’m sick. But if too many of you are sick, you can’t perform.”

Oin and Balin exchange a glance over the tops of the seats. “Are you sure you can handle him?” Oin asks. “He’s a difficult patient.”

“I am not,” Thorin says. His voice is raspy and rough. “I did what you asked, didn’t I? Not getting a flu shot doesn’t make me a difficult patient.”

Gandalf winces at the sound of Thorin’s voice. “Thorin, perhaps it would be best if you kept the talking to a minimum. In any case, I believe Bilbo is perfectly capable of keeping an eye on things.”

“I am,” Bilbo says. He turns to Oin, and the look he throws his way says ‘so there’ more eloquently than Thorin ever could. “If he takes a turn for the worse, I’ll wake you up.”

“Wake me up,” Oin agrees, eyes narrowed, “and then call 911.”

Absolutely not. Thorin has the flu, for Durin’s sake – he’s not at death’s door. “Don’t call 911,” Thorin says.

Half the bus shouts back at him. “No arguments!”

Thorin slumps down in his seat again. Another water bottle comes sailing over the top of his seat to land in his lap. Thorin looks at it dismally. Then he picks it up, twists off the top, and takes a sip. The only thing more embarrassing than being sick is not doing the things that will make you better, and Thorin is very tired of both being sick and of being treated like a difficult patient by the rest of the band. He’s not difficult. He’s got nothing on the lot of them when they have even the slightest bit of a hangover.

He looks up at Bilbo. “Which room?”

“314,” Bilbo says. But he doesn’t throw Thorin the key cards the same way he did to the others. Thorin wonders why for a moment before the answer strikes him squarely between the eyes. They’re going to the same place, together. For the moment, they really only need one. Thorin just nods. He remembers a while back, weeks ago in Seattle, thinking about what he’d do differently if he ever got the chance to share a room – or a tent – with Bilbo again. It looks like he’s going to get his chance, and he’s going to get it at the moment when he’s least prepared to make use of it. Barring people who’ve survived multiple natural disasters, Thorin really does have the worst luck in the world.

It’s raining by the time they reach the hotel, and no one’s willing to leave their instruments on the bus, so it’s a messy scramble to get everyone inside. Thorin manages to get his backpack, his guitar, and his duffel bag before someone can take it away from him, and he gets into the lobby ahead of everyone else. It occurs to Thorin as he looks around, glassy-eyed, that this hotel is much nicer than anywhere he would have picked for the band to stay.

Thorin hears footsteps drawing up alongside him. He doesn’t even need to look to know it’s Bilbo. “We can’t afford this place.”

“Ordinarily, no,” Bilbo says. “But you’re not playing as the Indigo Girls’ opening act just for the exposure. Besides, they have celebrity rates.”

“Celebrity rates,” Thorin repeats. His voice sounds like a nightmare.

“I told the manager I’d feature the hotel on our Instagram, and it is the off season,” Bilbo says. He has his backpack and his rolling suitcase, but he looks much less buttoned-up than he did when Thorin first met him. He hasn’t put the sweater back on, either. “She gave us a discount on these seven rooms. I thought it would be pushing our luck – and the band’s finances – to ask for more.”

Bilbo thinks of everything. Thorin wonders when he’s going to stop being awestruck by Bilbo’s easy competence. Probably never. “That’s why we’re sharing, then.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo says patiently, “you’re sick, not stupid.”

“I’d rather share with you than Oin,” Thorin says without thinking.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re sharing with me,” Bilbo says. Thorin’s guitar case is dangling limply from his right hand, and after a moment, Bilbo takes it from him. Thorin would stop him, but now he’s got shooting pains in his fingers on top of everything else and he can’t do much more than let it go.

“I’m sorry about this,” Thorin says.

The rest of the band is already making for the elevators. Thorin spots them out of the corner of his eye, but he can’t look for long, because doing that would mean looking away from Bilbo and that smile that he only ever seems to show when looking at Thorin. Thorin wishes uselessly that he could stop being sick by the time they make it up to their room. “Sorry about what?”

Sorry that Thorin’s in no shape to take advantage of a night alone in a hotel room with Bilbo. “Being sick.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo says affectionately, and Thorin knows what’s coming even before he says the rest of it, “shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand thanks to everyone who left kudos, and especially to hush_over_the_night, Gerec, adiaphora, LostGryphin, Arrowsboi, and arghsigh for the comments! They always bring a smile to my face.


	13. Chapter 13

Their room – Thorin’s and Bilbo’s – is supposed to have two double beds, a closet, and a decently sized bathroom. Since he has a free hand, Thorin uses the key card to unlock the door and holds it open for Bilbo. As he does, he glances out into the hall. The other bandmembers are disappearing into their rooms as well, but Thorin catches Kili’s eye by accident. Kili aims a significant look at Bilbo before looking back at Thorin and waggling his eyebrows. Thorin musters up what’s probably his weakest glare in history in response. Then he piles into the hotel room after Bilbo and closes the door. The Bilbo situation is complicated enough without nearly the entire band being in on it.

Or maybe it’s not, Thorin thinks, as Bilbo reaches around Thorin’s waist to lock the door behind them. Maybe it’s not complicated at all.

Bilbo’s already tucked Thorin’s guitar into the closet, and set his own backpack on the desk and his suitcase under it. He hasn’t picked a bed. Thorin makes his way over to the one furthest from the door and sets his things down. Then he shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over the chair in the corner of the room. After that, Thorin does what comes naturally; he flops back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling.

Bilbo sits down on the bed next to him. “How do you feel?”

“Like hell,” Thorin says.

Bilbo is quiet for a moment. Then – “I knew you were warm earlier.”

“Don’t tell Oin that. If he has any idea you knew before he did, he’ll murder you.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Bilbo says. He picks up Thorin’s right hand from the bedspread and settles it between both of his. “Do you want to shower?”

In other circumstances, he would. In this one, Thorin wants to crawl under the covers and die. He says as much to Bilbo, in his rough, ruined voice, and Bilbo laughs. “Come on, then. I’m going to shower, but let’s get you settled first.”

Thorin rolls over onto his face, grabs his duffel bag, and hauls it onto the bed. He extracts a pair of hideous sweatpants that Dis gave him when he was in high school. They’re what Thorin sleeps in when he’s not sleeping on the ground or in a tent. Thorin pulls off his boots one at a time and sets them down by his backpack. Then he changes into the sweatpants, chanting it’s-not-weird-if-you-don’t-make-it-weird over and over in his head like some sort of mantra. Thorin can’t tell if he wants Bilbo to look at him right now or not. He decides it’s better not to know.

Thorin realizes just how far the sickness has pulled him down when he starts trying to unbutton his shirt. His fingers feel huge and clumsy and painful – whatever small measure of dexterity he had, he spent it during the show. Thorin doesn’t feel bad about that, but he does feel like an idiot as he tries to finish undressing himself. Thorin’s reserves of self-control are drained to the point where he’s nearly ready to cry from frustration. Why does it have to be complicated? Why does it have to be so difficult all the time? He just wants to go to bed.

“Here.” Bilbo stills Thorin’s hands with his, and a flush that might be fever or might be want rips its way through Thorin from heels to hairline. If Bilbo notices, he doesn’t respond. Instead he starts undoing the buttons on Thorin’s shirt, one at a time. “Let me do it.”

It’s strange – for all the thought Thorin’s given to what it would be like to undo the buttons on Bilbo’s pajama shirt, or any shirt he happens to be wearing, he’s never really considered what it would feel like if Bilbo did the same to him. That’s probably good, because Thorin’s imagination could never have conjured up anything that compares to this. As it is, he sits there stunned, his heart hammering so loudly that it’s a wonder Bilbo doesn’t hear it. He undoes the last button and slides the shirt from Thorin’s shoulders, the tips of his fingers brushing over Thorin’s skin. Thorin wonders if this is some form of payback, for something bad he did in another life. That’s the only explanation for how this can feel so good, and he can still be too sick to respond.

With Thorin’s shirt off, he’s expecting Bilbo to step away. Instead, Bilbo goes to work on Thorin’s hair. He slides one of the beads off, sets it on the nightstand, and begins to undo the braid. Thorin feels like he should stop him, like he should do it himself instead of letting Bilbo wait on him hand and foot. But Thorin has a feeling that saying something to this effect will result in being told to shut up again. Bilbo finishes with that braid and moves on to the next one. His face is so close to Thorin’s. All it would take to kiss him would be to lean forward, and if Thorin wasn’t patient zero of the next viral apocalypse at the moment, he’d do it.

“How long have you worn your hair like this?” Bilbo asks.

“Years,” Thorin says after a moment. He’s trying not to breathe on Bilbo. Meanwhile, Bilbo’s fingers keep brushing up against the side of Thorin’s neck, and that’s making it hard for Thorin to breathe at all. “It’s sort of a family thing.”

Bilbo nods. “Speaking of family things, you never told me you were related to half the band.”

“Three-quarters of the band,” Thorin says. “I think the only ones who aren’t on the family tree are Bofur, Bifur, and Bombur. But they might as well be family. They’ve been more family to me than some of the people I’m actually related to.”

“I think I understand,” Bilbo says. He moves on to the last braid. “The first night, when I watched you all perform, I couldn’t believe how together you were. If there were mistakes – every band makes mistakes, even the ones who’ve been together for decades – I never saw them, because you had each other’s backs. It was so clear to me that you all loved what you were doing. That you all loved each other.”

Bilbo has a gift for putting into words what Thorin’s thinking. Thorin can only do that when he’s writing music. “You could see that?”

Bilbo nods. “You looked like you belonged up there. I knew if I signed you I could push you harder than other bands, because you had each other, and none of you would risk letting the others down. I made half my decision during the first song.”

When did he make the other half of that decision? “The musical saw song?” Thorin says. “I was watching you. You looked confused.”

“Because it shouldn’t have worked,” Bilbo says. “Musical saw? It’s laughable, but I wasn’t laughing. I was listening. That’s why.”

Thorin’s always wondered what was going on in Bilbo’s head that night. What he was thinking as he watched a band that was consistently in the wrong place at the wrong time, who couldn’t even pick a band name. Why he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the band even as Thorin argued and complained and doubted him, until even Thorin couldn’t doubt him anymore. Bilbo’s fingers are slow as he undoes the last braid, almost as if he doesn’t want to move away.

Maybe that’s why Thorin says it, to give him a reason to stay. Or maybe it’s because he wants Bilbo to know how completely he rescued them – all of them, and Thorin especially. “It was going to be our last show.”

Bilbo’s hands still on Thorin’s last braid. “What do you mean?”

“We were running out of money. We could barely afford to fill the bus’s gas tank, and we were sleeping on the ground every night,” Thorin says. Thinking about it makes him feel unspeakably sad. “The weather was changing and we couldn’t afford hotel rooms. If I didn’t stop the band on my own, something else was going to stop us. I wanted it to be my decision.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo says. But he doesn’t say anything else after that, and Thorin doesn’t know what to do except keep talking.

“I played that song at the end because it was my last show and I wanted to play the last song I’d written,” Thorin says. It feels colder in the hotel room than it was a few minutes ago. “I wanted it to be a good memory. For as long as I had it.”

Headache and fever and exhaustion and the way Bilbo’s looking at him, and Thorin’s made the biggest slip in history when it comes to what might be waiting for him. “You know, you never asked,” Bilbo says after a minute.

He’s not picking up on Thorin’s mistake. Thorin wondered if he even noticed it, or if he did and just chalked it up to Thorin being vaguely delirious. “Asked what?”

“When I made the other half of my decision,” Bilbo says carefully. Thorin just looks at him. “It was when you came out there and sat on the edge of the stage like a – a theatre kid at an open-mic night and played that song. I felt it, right here.”

He makes a fist and settles it just below his sternum. Thorin knows what he means. He’s felt it before, too. Bilbo lets his hand relax. “I’ve been doing this job since I was twenty-two. Different labels, different artists, but all the same in one way and another. When Gandalf called me and told me I needed to see this show in Minnesota, I thought he’d just been knocking around the Midwest for too long. But he’s my friend, so I came to see.”

“Gandalf has that effect on people,” Thorin says. “Gandalf convinced me to do the last show.”

Bilbo nods, smiling ever so slightly. “I liked the band. I wasn’t sure about you, not at first. But then you played that solo. That song – it wasn’t just words to you, not just a handful of rhyming couplets and a decent guitar hook.”

“The hook was just decent?” Thorin says. He raises his eyebrows, and his headache comes roaring back at full force.

Bilbo makes an exasperated noise. “You meant what you were saying. You believed it. You could hold a thirteen-man band together and hold your own by yourself on a stage with nowhere to sit and no microphone. It was magnetic. I couldn’t look away. I still can’t.”

Thorin thinks he might die. His heart is beating unsteadily and he struggles to control his breathing, and he doesn’t know what to say in response. And now he’s shivering, for some reason. Bilbo undoes the last of Thorin’s braids and lifts his hand, pressing the back of it against Thorin’s forehead. He frowns. “You’re warm, still. How high was your fever?”

“Didn’t Kili tell you?”

“He just said you were sick,” Bilbo says. He sits back from Thorin. “What was it?”

“103,” Thorin says. Bilbo’s eyebrows go up. “What? It’s not that high.”

“It’s high enough,” Bilbo says. “Get in bed.”

Thorin does as he’s bid. The bedsheets are cool, which is good, because Thorin’s skin feels hot and prickly and at the same time he feels cold. He draws them up over his shoulder one-handed and looks at Bilbo. “What are you going to do?”

“I need to shower,” Bilbo says. “After how sweaty I got during load-out, I smell bad.”

“You don’t smell bad.”

Bilbo flaps a hand at him, frustrated but not. “Do you care if I play music? If it will make your head hurt more, I won’t.”

Thorin’s head is going to hurt regardless of whether Bilbo plays music or not. And he wants to know what kind of music Bilbo listens to when he’s not listening to country, alt-country, country-adjacent, or one of Fili’s tequila songs. “Go ahead.”

Bilbo heads for the bathroom, stopping to pick up his pajama set on the way. “Yell if you need anything. But not too loud, or Oin will break down the door.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Thorin says, and Bilbo laughs. He ducks into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. A moment later, Thorin hears water running. Then he rolls over and buries his face in the pillows.

If he wasn’t certain before, he is now. Thorin doesn’t just like Bilbo Baggins. He’s not just impressed with him as an agent, as a social media strategist, as the only person other than Gandalf who’s believed in the band. Thorin doesn’t just find him ridiculously attractive. Thorin doesn’t just like Bilbo. Thorin is most of the way, if not all the way, in love with him.

Burying his face in the pillows doesn’t seem to help. Thorin rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. He hears rain hitting the windows, and the sound of running water from the bathroom. He thinks about Bilbo’s fingers on his shoulder, on the side of his neck, what it felt like to sit there still and vulnerable while Bilbo unbuttoned his shirt. _I couldn’t look away. I still can’t_. It feels almost like a fever dream, like this isn’t really happening and any minute Thorin’s going to wake up on the bus. He shakes his head, trying to clear any residual dreams from his mind, and ends up worsening his own headache. Thorin wishes Bilbo were here. He wishes their room had only one bed instead of two.

Thorin is shivering. He wishes he wasn’t, and he thinks about going for a shirt, but going for a shirt would involve getting up – and if Thorin could get up, getting a shirt would be extremely low on his list of priorities. Instead of thinking about it, Thorin tries to build his case for why Bilbo should forgo the other bed and sleep in this one with Thorin. He wonders if it would be dramatically self-serving to claim that it’s because he’s cold.

Thorin is turning that thought over in his head when he hears the singing.

At first he thinks it’s just Bilbo’s music. He’s heard notes in the background this whole time, but no lyrics – it wouldn’t surprise him if Bilbo preferred classical music. Or the water might be drowning the lyrics out. That doesn’t explain why this particular song is so much louder than the others. When it occurs to Thorin, finally, he can’t even think about it all the way. All he can do is lie back and listen.

Bilbo’s singing voice doesn’t have the most brightness or resonance, but it’s strong and it’s flexible. He has excellent breath support, too – he’s able to hold a steady note over long phrases, without fading out at the end. On top of that, Bilbo enunciates much better than most male singers. As good as Thorin does, at least. Possibly better. Thorin wonders why he didn’t realize that Bilbo could sing before now. He wonders why he never asked. Why he never wondered what Bilbo minored in music for, theory or composition or performance. Thorin’s betting on performance.

Thorin hasn’t heard the song Bilbo’s singing before, but thanks to Bilbo’s near-perfect enunciation, he picks up every word. The first thing he notices is that it’s a country song. The second thing he notices is that it’s a country song written from the perspective of a woman about a man. And the longer Thorin listens, the more he likes it.

Thorin discovers that hearing Bilbo stretch his syllables and truncate his words and say things like ‘ain’t’ is extremely bad for his concentration. It’s an odd little song – Thorin doesn’t know that it can be said to have a rhyme scheme – but it’s plaintive and oddly compelling. It brings an image to mind, jagged mountains and wind sweeping over vast expanses of prairie beneath a distant set of stars. Imagery matters. Bilbo taught Thorin that – the videos from Glacier National Park and the two other parks they visited around Seattle are still their most-viewed on Instagram and YouTube. Only the video of their second show comes even close.

Thorin got over his hatred of seeing himself on camera just so he could see what Bilbo did with the footage, how he took video of the band sitting under a tree or in a meadow or overlooking mountains and valleys and turned it into something compelling. Thorin would never have thought to focus on the things Bilbo does, or to piece the shots together in the same way. But Bilbo doesn’t need a camera or the band to conjure a powerful image. Bilbo can do it with his voice alone.

Bilbo sings one more song before he turns off the water, but Thorin’s so lost in dissecting the first one at leisure that he barely listens to it. Then before he knows it the water’s off and the door is opening and Thorin realizes that he hasn’t figured out how to conceal his new understanding of his feelings for Bilbo – and he hasn’t come up with any arguments for why Bilbo should sleep in Thorin’s bed instead of the other one.

Bilbo emerges from the bathroom, already wearing his pajama set. He’s rubbing his head with a towel, trying to dry his hair. He looks at Thorin, checking if Thorin’s still awake – and when he sees that he is, Bilbo smiles. “I thought you might be asleep.”

“Not yet,” Thorin says. Bilbo makes his way over to the end of his own bed and reaches into his backpack, withdrawing his phone charger. “Bilbo –”

As soon as Thorin starts to make his argument, it becomes irrelevant, because Bilbo is going around to the other side of Thorin’s bed, plugging his charger into the wall outlet, and climbing under the covers alongside Thorin. “Yes?”

Thorin tries to think of something else to say. “What were you singing?”

“Someday Soon. It’s old,” Bilbo says offhandedly. “From the sixties. A lot of country artists have covered it, but that was the version I like best. It’s on my cover playlist.”

“Cover playlist?” Thorin repeats.

Bilbo’s face flushes. Thorin wants to reach out, but he remembers he’s contagious. “It’s nothing.”

Thorin decides to forget that he’s contagious for a moment or two. He reaches out and touches the corner of Bilbo’s jaw before letting his fingers trail down the side of his neck. The pajama shirt isn’t nearly as restrictive as Bilbo’s sweaters. It shifts aside easily before Thorin’s fingers, and he keeps them moving until he reaches Bilbo’s collarbone. Bilbo sucks in a breath. “Tell me?” Thorin asks.

“That,” Bilbo says distinctly, “is not fair.”

Thorin feels a smile tugging at him, and for once in his life he doesn’t try to push it away. He continues to work over Bilbo’s collarbone, watching the color in Bilbo’s cheeks brighten. Thorin feels the headache lurking at the back of his skull, the pain pooling in his joints, how cold he is and how sensitive his skin feels. He knows he should sleep before it comes rushing back over him and he’s too uncomfortable to rest. But he doesn’t want to let this night go yet, as physically uncomfortable as parts of it have been. “Tell me, please?”

“I have a playlist,” Bilbo says – then he breaks off, takes a deep breath. Thorin eases up for a moment. “A playlist of songs I think the band would sound good covering. It’s purely academic, of course – by this point you have enough originals that you shouldn’t need more than one or two covers per set.”

“I didn’t know you were doing that,” Thorin says. His throat aches, and he realizes how awful his voice sounds. He forgot for a little while, too interested in what Bilbo was saying and doing to think about anything else, but now that he remembers, Thorin wonders if he’ll be able to talk at all tomorrow. “Can I see it?”

“I don’t know,” Bilbo says, and Thorin goes back to outlining his collarbone with his fingers. Bilbo lets out an exasperated huff that sharpens into something else at the end. “If your point is that you’ll stop this if I show it to you, I must inform you that the odds of me showing you are dropping by the second.”

“No,” Thorin says. He can feel Bilbo’s pulse humming, and he can feel his own, too close to the skin for comfort. Bilbo is beginning to shift around on his side of the bed. “That’s not my point.”

Bilbo reaches up with one hand and stills Thorin’s fingers. With his other hand, he offers Thorin the phone, unlocking it with the same hand once Thorin’s taken it. Thorin turns around the screen and beholds a playlist labeled not ‘cover playlist’, but ‘Thorin’. It occurs to Thorin that this is why Bilbo didn’t want him to see the playlist, but possibly also why Bilbo’s changed his mind. Bilbo hasn’t let go of Thorin’s other hand yet.

“These are songs you want me to arrange for the band?” he asks, scrolling through the list. Some of the titles he recognizes, some he doesn’t.

“Some of them,” Bilbo says. “Others would sound better as solos, I think – or as preview spots on our social media.”

He coughs into his fist. “Some of them I just wanted to hear you sing.”

Thorin doesn't need a reminder that he’s in love with Bilbo, but this is a good one. “Speaking of singing,” Thorin says, because if he doesn’t make a direct subject change, what he’s thinking might come out of his mouth, “I didn’t know you could.”

“I can’t, really,” Bilbo says. He nudges Thorin’s hand off his shoulder but keeps holding it on the way down. “I just like to. The one I was singing – people have covered it on original albums before. I think if you brought the arrangement down to guitar and piano and flute – oh, and maybe drums – it would be a good slowdown mid-set.”

“Should we be slowing down mid-set?” Thorin asks. He lets Bilbo have his phone back.

“If you’d like. It builds the tension,” Bilbo says. He plugs his phone in and sets it aside. “How do you feel, Thorin?”

“The same as before,” Thorin says. It’s still very much present, but it’s dulled a little bit, probably because of the next thing. “And tired.”

“I’ll get the lights,” Bilbo says, letting go of Thorin’s hand. He gets out of bed and crosses to the wall switch, turning it off, before coming back to Thorin’s side of the bed to get the nightstand light. Thorin’s expecting him to go back around to his side of the bed, but instead, Bilbo climbs over Thorin to get to his spot. If it were anyone else, Thorin would be worried about rogue elbows and knees, but Bilbo has a gift for graceful, quiet movement when he wants it. “Thorin?”

“Yes?” Thorin says. Bilbo is under the covers, wrestling around to get comfortable. One of his ice-cold feet brushes Thorin’s leg and Thorin tries not to shiver.

“What were you really going to ask when I came out of the shower?” Bilbo phrases this as if it’s an academic interest, instead of something he’s using to pay Thorin back for what Thorin was doing to him a few minutes earlier.

Thorin could lie, but he doesn’t see the point – and more than that, he doesn’t want to. He wants Bilbo to know what he was thinking, how much he thinks about him. “I was trying to come up with an argument that would convince you to sleep here instead of over there.”

“Really?” Bilbo says. He sounds amused. “What did you come up with?”

Thorin didn’t mind sharing the first bit, but this part is just embarrassing. He sighs, and Bilbo makes an indiscriminate sound on the other side of the bed. “That I was cold.”

“Are you still?” Bilbo asks.

This cannot be real. This cannot possibly be going the way Thorin wants it to. “Yes.”

He feels Bilbo’s hand on his arm first. Then his chest, then his shoulder – and then Bilbo is pressed up against Thorin’s side, his head on Thorin’s shoulder and his hand on Thorin’s chest. “I suppose I’m better than nothing.”

Thorin almost tells Bilbo he loves him, here and now, but no amount of fever will convince him that it’s a good idea. Instead he says, “Much better.”

Bilbo’s searching fingers find a strand of Thorin’s hair and tangle themselves in it. Thorin’s whole body hurts, where Bilbo’s touching him and where he isn’t, and he prefers having Bilbo closer than not. Thorin’s throat is hurting worse than ever. “Aren’t you worried I’ll infect you?”

“No,” Bilbo says, “but not so much unworried as undeterred by the prospect.”

Thorin smiles at that, and it’s an effort not to hide it, even though there’s no one here to see. Bilbo speaks again, softer this time. “If you start feeling worse, wake me up.” Thorin nods. Bilbo burrows his head into the juncture between Thorin’s neck and shoulder. When Bilbo speaks, Thorin feels his lips against his skin. “Goodnight, Thorin.”

Thorin almost says it again, but he swallows it down painfully. “Goodnight, Bilbo.”

Even as he’s falling asleep, Thorin can tell that he’s in for a rough night in spite of the extremely pleasant conditions. When he’s not acutely focused on something, like performing the show or making a study of Bilbo’s collarbones, the fever takes his thoughts and spins them sideways, warping them into unrecognizable objects faster than he can draw them back. It’s unsettling, and he doesn’t like it, but as exhaustion overtakes him, Thorin’s powerless to stop it. It takes Thorin’s mind to that thing you’re supposed to do with things you love – let them go. And it asks him what on earth he’s doing with Bilbo.

The panic overtakes him at frightening speeds, to the point where his breathing is rapid and his heart is shuddering in his chest. Bilbo make a sleepy, concerned sound and moves his hand to grip Thorin’s shoulder. It steadies Thorin just enough for him to think how awful it is to seek comfort from someone you’re inevitably going to hurt. And he goes to sleep with that etched into his mind.

Small wonder he has bad dreams.

* * *

The next morning is a grey and early one to allow for the twelve-hour drive between Portland and San Francisco. The San Francisco show isn’t until tomorrow night, but after the traffic debacle on the Seattle-Portland leg of the tour, everyone wants to be in the new city with plenty of time to spare. A lot of coffee is purchased from the Starbucks across the street from the hotel; the band also manages to relieve the same establishment of two-thirds of its stock of baked goods. Thus provisioned, with everyone aboard and Bofur in the driver’s seat, The Lonely Mountains set out for California.

Thorin doesn’t feel much better this morning than he did last night, but he’s wedged into his usual seat, secured by two extra blankets. He also has Ori’s pillow, excitedly forced on him after a band-wide discussion about whose pillow was the best. Kili offered to draw Thorin a picture, and maybe it’s the fever talking, but Thorin couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. Oin, who gets carsick unless he’s sitting the back half of the bus, has developed an elaborate system of gestures and flailing in order to communicate with Bilbo, who’s sitting across the aisle from Thorin to give him space to get comfortable and is in a position to observe him. Thorin is more than a little touched by the band’s attempts to make him comfortable, but he also wishes that he was back in the hotel room in Portland.

Thorin didn’t want to get up, in spite of his nightmares. What he wanted to do was stay in bed until nighttime and then get a do-over on the whole notion of sleeping with Bilbo in his arms. They woke up in the same position they went to sleep in, and Thorin was absurdly grumpy about having to leave the hotel until Bilbo informed him, clearly pleased with himself, that they only had seven rooms at the San Francisco hotel. Thorin complained somewhat less after that.

He’s been trying to work on a new song. He’s had some ideas lately, particularly in the last twelve hours, but they feel almost too new to write about. Thorin doesn’t know them well enough to make them come out right. But still, they’re stuck there, so Thorin alternates between scribbling them down and plotting out arrangements for the song Bilbo was singing last night. Thorin can count that as working on a new song if he stretches the truth a bit. Maybe a little more than a bit. But even so, it’s for the band.

Bilbo is working on something for the band, too, but he’s frowning. Every so often he looks up from his laptop at Thorin, and if Thorin catches him looking, Bilbo smiles. The rest of the time, his eyes are intent on the screen. Whatever he’s seeing there, it’s not good news. Finally Thorin asks about it outright. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” Bilbo says. “Nothing you need to worry about. Just some industry news.”

Thorin may be a musician, and he may be a little cloudy today, but he grew up in a family of managers and agents. He knows what Bilbo is really saying, and why he doesn’t want to tell Thorin. “What did he do?”

“Who?” Bilbo does an excellent job of looking confused, but the frown is poorly masked beneath it.

“Smaug,” Thorin says. Bilbo’s eyes widen. “He’s the only kind of industry news that people make that face about. What did he do?”

“He bought out Esgaroth Recording Studios,” Bilbo says after a moment, and Thorin’s heart sinks.

“Do you know why?” he asks. Esgaroth was a much smaller label than Erebor Records, and they had fewer artists at their peak than Erebor had at its lowest point. Who were their artists, again? “They had The Barrel-Riders, didn’t they?”

Bilbo nods. “And Lasgalen.”

Now it makes sense to Thorin. The Barrel-Riders are reasonably popular in their genre, with only slight crossover appeal. They wouldn’t have been on Smaug’s radar, not unless he had a deep and abiding grudge against one of them, and Thorin can’t recall such a thing. Lasgalen, on the other hand – their hatred of Lasgalen was one of the things Smaug and Thorin’s grandfather bonded over. Smaug didn’t take out Esgaroth because it presented competition – by this point there’s only a handful of labels that could take on Smaug, and all have stayed far out of his way – he took it out to spite Thranduil. And if Smaug is willing to do that to someone who’s been out of the industry for more than a decade, what on earth is he going to do to Rivendell Records and Thorin?

“Don’t worry,” Bilbo says. Thorin will buy that his expression has worry written all over it, but if Bilbo guesses what he’s thinking – “Our record label isn’t going to cave.”

“It’s almost disturbing how you do that.” Thorin’s shivering again. He draws the blanket more tightly around himself and edges away from the window.

“I know you,” Bilbo says. He tilts his head, studying Thorin, and Thorin doesn’t look away or hide or say something to convince Bilbo to stop. “Our label isn’t Esgaroth. Smaug won’t be able to drive us out of business.”

“He’s been too quiet,” Thorin says. “It’s been months since he came after us. Before that he was doing something to us every single week – threatening to blacklist club owners who booked us, putting my relationship history back on the internet in case anyone forgot that I’m bisexual, calling artists whose songs we covered and asking if they wanted to sue us. It’s fun for him. I don’t understand why he stopped.”

Bilbo is staring at Thorin, his mouth partway open in surprise. Thorin realizes that he’s never told Bilbo exactly what dealing with Smaug has been like. He assumed Bilbo had asked Gandalf, or other people in the band, or figured it out on his own. But Bilbo’s mouth narrows into a thin line and twin spots of color flare high on his cheeks. “Well,” Bilbo says after a moment, “if he starts up again, he knows where to find me.”

Not us. Me. “I don’t know what you’re planning to do, but it won’t work,” Thorin says. They’ve had this conversation before, and Thorin didn’t win that time, either – but that’s not going to stop him from trying to keep Bilbo out of the line of fire. “My grandfather’s company was one of the biggest in the industry. It stood for fifty years and Smaug brought it down in two. I don’t doubt you, or the label, but I know what he can do. I’ve watched him do it. I don’t want to watch it happen to you.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo says abruptly, “you promised to leave Smaug to me.”

“I did,” Thorin says. “But I can’t sit here and watch him destroy you while you’re trying to protect us.”

“Smaug brought down Erebor Records from the inside,” Bilbo says. He closes the lid of the laptop and sets it down on the seat next to his. Unlike when he first came along on tour, Bilbo always sits in the aisle seat. “I’ve been reading about what happened. A number of people have written about it, and as far as I can tell, what Smaug did wouldn’t have been possible without some stunning lapses in judgment on your grandfather’s part.”

Bilbo glances at Thorin, then cringes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”

“I don’t think it counts as speaking ill if you’re telling the truth,” Thorin says. It never occurred to him that other people in the industry would be interested in what happened beyond trying to prevent it from happening to them. He swallows. It feels like he’s swallowing a handful of gravel. “What else did they say?”

“Well, the types of contracts your grandfather handed out were starting to shift,” Bilbo says. “They went from two-year contracts for new artists and five-year contracts for established artists to six months for new artists and two years for established ones. Official word from the company said the decision was made to allow more creative freedom.”

Creative freedom, in Thorin’s opinion, is industry-speak for ‘ability to get rid of people who don’t do exactly what you want’. Based on Bilbo’s expression, he feels similarly. “As you can imagine, artists started fleeing the company. Internal documents that surfaced in the bankruptcy filing suggest that at that point, your grandfather transferred responsibility for the label’s major artists over to Smaug.”

Thorin knew about that part; he remembers his father raging about it at a family dinner five years ago. But he had no idea what preceded it. It makes sense, in a twistedly brilliant sort of way. Smaug manufactured a crisis, presented himself as the only one who could fix it, and earned Thror’s trust. And for a while, he did a good job managing the label’s major artists, placing them high on the charts and booking them on stadium tours across North America and Europe. It lulled Thorin’s father into a false sense of security, as though he’d misjudged Smaug when Smaug was really only trying to help; as though Thror’s mind was as sharp as ever. And Thror spent the next two years believing that he’d come out on top once again.

“I remember that,” Thorin says aloud. “What happened next?”

“You would know what happened next better than I would,” Bilbo says.

“Not from the industry side.” Thorin sends a silent apology to Ori and begins trying to knead his borrowed pillow into a more comfortable shape. “My father and my grandfather were barely speaking to each other. My sister wouldn’t come to the house anymore – I always went to visit her. When it happened, it all happened at once.”

Thorin thinks that day was the worst day of his life, and he can’t even tell Bilbo all the reasons why. He can’t tell anyone. It’s too close and too frightening, all of it, and what Thorin remembers most is the sound. The harsh crack of a gunshot echoing through a house that Thror must have thought was empty. Ambulance sirens wailing in Thorin’s ears, too little, too late. His sister’s anger, her tears, as she shouted at Thrain, demanding to know why he didn’t find out sooner, why he didn’t tell them. She was thinking of Fili and Kili, Thorin knew. As he stood there listening to his sister cry and his father stand there with a face like stone, Thorin can’t remember thinking of anything at all.

“It looked that way from the industry side, too,” Bilbo says, and Thorin snaps himself back to focus. “The data leak was a week before the company filed for bankruptcy.”

The data leak. What a polite way to frame Smaug’s utter violation of Thorin’s privacy in the service of twisting the knife just a little harder. There was no point to it. Smaug had the record company under his control; it was only a matter for time before he forced Thror out. He did it because he could.

“Smaug filed for bankruptcy the same day my grandfather died,” Thorin says, and Bilbo looks up at him. Saying that Thror died feels too peaceful for what actually happened. It feels like a lie, and Thorin doesn’t want to lie to Bilbo. But if he starts telling the truth about this, he’s going to have to explain more than he wants to. He clears his throat, then immediately wishes he hadn’t. “So you’re saying that because Smaug can’t destroy your label from the inside out like he did with my grandfather’s, and because you won’t be bought out like Esgaroth was, there’s nothing Smaug can do to your label.”

“He can try to do all kinds of things. They just won’t work,” Bilbo says. He seems utterly unconcerned about the prospect of Smaug bringing his considerable resources to bear against Rivendell Records. Thorin envies him and is a little frightened of him at the same time. “And it’s _our_ label.”

Before Thorin can respond to this, Oin bellows from the back of the bus. “Bilbo! Temperature check!”

“It’s been half an hour!” Thorin protests. His voice cracks hard in the middle of the last word and he winces, praying that Kili and Fili both had their headphones in.

No such luck. A water bottle comes flying over the back of the seat and Thorin catches it. “Whoa,” Kili says from somewhere behind Thorin, “who knew the flu made you go through puberty again?”

Thorin sinks down in his seat even further. Bilbo hands him the thermometer across the aisle and Thorin jams it under his tongue, glaring at everyone and no one. He doesn’t want to be sick anymore, and he definitely doesn’t want the fact that he’s sick to be so entertaining to everyone else. But he can’t be angry at them, because they’ve been treating him like they normally treat him ever since they realized that he wasn’t going to die, and in a weird way, Thorin’s grateful that things are normal. Even if normal means being pelted with water bottles and snacks by his nephews from seven rows back.

“Bilbo! Hey, Bilbo!” Fili’s tone of voice sounds more like his younger brother’s at the moment. “Did you know there’s a national park on our route? Two of them!”

“Lassen in California, and Crater Lake in Oregon,” Bilbo says. “They’re a little out of the way, and Crater Lake especially tends to get crowded. We’ll film in them the next time we’re headed this way.”

“Nice,” Fili says. He doesn’t sound disappointed at all. Quiet for a moment. “Thorin, catch!”

A bag of beef jerky sails over the seat to land in Thorin’s lap. He throws it back, but doesn’t check his aim first. Bilbo watches its arc with amusement, then nods at Thorin, holding out his hand for the thermometer. Thorin hands it back, listening to the mild chaos from the back of the bus. Fili is attempting to retrieve his beef jerky from whoever Thorin tossed it to. “Give it back!”

“No,” Dwalin says through a full mouth. “He gave it to me. It’s mine.”

“He didn’t give it to you, he just threw it!” Fili protests. “If you’re not going to give it back, at least share!”

“No. Get your own.”

“I did!”

Bilbo studies the thermometer, then looks up at Thorin. “101. Your fever is going down.”

“What was that?” Oin shouts.

“101!” Bilbo has a gift for making himself heard without shouting, although it makes more sense to Thorin now that he knows how well Bilbo can sing. “It’s an improvement!”

“Good! Make him drink his water.”

“I’m supposed to make you drink your water,” Bilbo says to Thorin, as though Thorin’s not just sick, but deaf on top of it. Thorin glances at the water bottle. It looks almost malevolent at this point. Bilbo lowers his voice. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“I won’t,” Thorin says immediately, and Bilbo smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and especially to LostGryphin, Arrowsboi, arghsigh, and hush_over_the_night for commenting. I always look forward to hearing what people think.


	14. Chapter 14

Thorin isn’t really sure what they’re doing here. Not in San Francisco – they have three shows, one with the headliners and two solo – but in this particular location, at this particular time. But here he is, sitting on a squeaky black leather couch and watching three members of the band get matching tattoos. Thorin remembers Kili bringing this up while they were loading in for the Portland show, but he didn’t think Kili was serious about it, which is why he told Kili to run it by the other bandmembers. The response, as Thorin understood it, was mixed. Some of the bandmembers, particularly Nori and Dwalin, were unreservedly into it. The rest were intrigued, but concerned that Kili was suggesting it as some sort of elaborate prank – something that would end with all of them tattooed and Kili not.

Thorin really wishes that Dori hadn’t brought that up, because that’s why they’re here. Kili stood up, indignant, and declared that he’d be the first to get the tattoo. Dori told him to put his money where his mouth was, Dwalin and Nori backed Kili up, and now all of them are here watching Kili, Nori, and Dwalin get matching tattoos of the band’s logo on their right shoulders.

Dwalin seems to have ascended to some higher plane; he looks more peaceful in the chair with a needle stabbing into his skin dozens of times per second than he does anywhere except onstage. That doesn’t surprise Thorin. Thorin’s more surprised by the fact that Dwalin had any unmarked patch of skin left that was large enough to accommodate the tattoo Kili designed. Thorin considers his bass player for a moment, then waves his hand in front of Dwalin’s face. No response.

“Did we kill him?” Thorin asks Balin in a low voice.

“No,” Balin says mildly. “He says this is the best high on the planet.”

“I’m sure Gandalf disagrees,” Bofur puts in from further down the couch. Gandalf is taking pictures of the scene. Right now, Ori and Fili are posing on either side of Kili, who’s grimacing. “But to each their own, of course.”

Thorin looks back at Dwalin, serene by comparison. “No wonder he’s got so many tattoos.”

Nori is having the hardest time handling the discomfort. This situation probably isn’t helped by the fact that Dori is parked in a chair nearby, heckling him. “Remember,” Nori growls, “if I make it through, you have to do it next.”

“I’m not worried,” Dori says, sitting back with a smug expression on his face. “You’re going to wimp out in about five seconds.”

“Never,” Nori snarls. “Ouch!”

Thorin’s bout with the flu is over for the most part. His throat doesn’t hurt, his fever’s gone down, and the muscle aches and chills are shadows of their former selves. He still gets tired, and Oin insists that he’s still contagious. But Thorin’s back to his old self. At least that’s what he thinks, until he remembers that he shares a room with Bilbo these nights, and then Thorin’s wondering if he’ll ever be his old self again. Or if he even wants to.

Bilbo is perched on the arm of the couch next to Thorin. He’s fiddling with his phone, taking occasional glances up at the scene in the tattoo parlor – and less occasional glances at Thorin. On one of these, Thorin catches his eye. “Is Nori overreacting, or are tattoos really that painful?”

Bilbo gives Nori an appraising look. “I didn’t think so,” he says after a moment. “But placement matters a lot, I’ve heard. If there’s bone close to the skin, it’s supposed to hurt more.”

Thorin nods at this. Nori’s begun to twitch uncomfortably in the chair, and after a moment’s consultation with Bofur, Gloin gets up from the couch and makes his way over. “Nori,” he says. “Give me your hand.”

“No! I’m not going to hold your hand!”

“Either you hold my hand right now, or you’re going to spend your life with a half-finished tattoo and Dori’s never going to shut up,” Gloin says ferociously. Nori, cowed, gives Gloin his hand. “Excellent. Okay, now I want you to take two short breaths and then a long one.”

“I don’t think that’s going to –”

“Do it!” Gloin orders, and Nori does. “Now keep up with that. Keep going!”

Bilbo observes this, bemused. “What am I looking at?”

“Durin save us,” Balin says, shaking his head. “He’s teaching him labor breathing.”

Thorin laughs. Bilbo, after an incredulous look between Balin and the Gloin-Nori situation, does too. “You wouldn’t know to look at him,” Bofur says conversationally, “but Gloin was a great labor coach. All the midwifes at the hospital wanted him to stay on.”

Thorin turns to look at him, still wheezing. “How on earth do you know that?”

“I was putting together the crib they bought for Gimli when Holly went into labor,” Bofur says. “I drove her to the hospital.”

“And you didn’t leave?” Bilbo asks incredulously.

“She wouldn’t let me,” Bofur says. “She was holding onto my hand like one of those giant snakes trying to kill its dinner. I couldn’t get out. I thought I’d be able to escape when Gloin showed up, but Holly grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go of mine and I guess Gloin just decided to roll with it.”

“So you were there for the birth of Gloin’s son,” Bilbo repeats, and Bofur nods cheerily. Thorin’s never heard this story before, and he’s trying not to go to pieces in the background. “How long have you all known each other?”

Bofur and Balin exchange a glance. “Forever,” Bofur says. “I think we were all at Thorin’s sister’s baby shower, weren’t we?”

“Both of them,” Balin says. He gives Bilbo a knowing look. “Some of us even came to the hospital when Thorin was born.”

Thorin stops laughing in a hurry. He changes the subject. “What’s going to happen to all of us if those three make it through?”

“Well,” Balin says after a moment, “I suppose we’re all going to get matching tattoos.”

“And Gloin is going to have to labor-coach us through it,” Bofur adds. He doesn’t seem unhappy with the prospect. “I hope I’ll put on a brave face, though. I’d hate for Gandalf to film me screaming and put it on Instagram.”

“No one is putting screaming videos on Instagram,” Bilbo says. “And it doesn’t hurt that much.”

Thorin sits there for a moment, puzzled by Bilbo’s certainty on the matter. Then he remembers what Bilbo said earlier, about whether or not they hurt: I didn’t think so. Didn’t, not don’t. He stares at Bilbo. “Do you have a tattoo?”

Bilbo’s expression suggests that he feels this realization should be a nonevent. “Yes.”

Balin drives an elbow into Thorin’s ribs, which has the effect of silencing whatever ridiculous thing was about to come out of Thorin’s mouth. Bofur fills the gap. “You do? What is it, then?”

“Where is it, more like?” Fili pops up over the back of the couch and leans on Thorin, who’s still trying to refill his lungs. “Let’s see!”

“I don’t know why you find this so interesting,” Bilbo says. “I thought all musicians had tattoos.”

“Maybe in, like, a rock band,” Fili says. Then he stops. “Wait, what music genre are we in again?”

“You’d better be kidding,” Thorin hisses. He shoves Fili off of him. “Go harass your brother some more.”

“Or go harass Dori,” Bofur puts in. “He’s distracting Gloin.”

“I want to see Bilbo’s tattoo,” Fili complains, still grimly hanging on.

Bilbo considers for a moment. Somewhere in that moment, he looks at Thorin, and Thorin spends another moment wishing uselessly for Bilbo, and for some privacy in which to figure out exactly where this tattoo is and what it looks like. Then Bilbo pulls up a picture on his phone and passes it to Fili. Thorin doesn’t see it – it gets passed behind his head. But he hears what Fili thinks of it. “This is so cool, Bilbo. When did you get it?”

“A year and a half ago,” Bilbo says, and of everyone sitting on this stupid, squeaky couch, Thorin is the only one who knows what that means.

“It’s awesome,” Fili says. “Balin, Bofur, check it out!”

Bilbo watches, amused, as his phone gets passed around. Then he turns to Thorin, and although his mouth is smiling, his eyes are deadly serious. He doesn’t quite whisper it in Thorin’s ear, but it’s a near thing. “I’ll show you later.”

Bilbo saying that, and the image it conjures in Thorin’s mind, feel like a punch in the stomach. But the good kind. Thorin surveys the tattoo parlor and tries to act like Bilbo hasn’t just put his heart rate through the roof.

Bilbo’s phone comes back around – most likely with a new ringtone, based on the way Fili’s smirking – and Bilbo goes back to whatever he’s doing. Thorin glances at the screen and sees that Bilbo’s checking Lasgalen’s Instagram account. He’s been checking The Barrel Riders’ account, too, but he seems particularly fixated on Lasgalen. As Thorin watches, Bilbo switches from Instagram to Twitter, and then to Facebook. “No,” Thorin hears him muttering under his breath. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”

“What?” Thorin asks.

Bilbo stands up and beelines across the tattoo parlor to where Kili’s still grimacing and trying not to move. After a moment, Thorin follows him.

“You,” Bilbo is saying to Kili, “are in trouble.”

“What did I do?” Kili asks.

“You know what you did,” Bilbo says. “Your official social media accounts are for the band and band-related things, not for thirst-following Thranduil’s backup singer!”

Thorin nearly bursts out laughing for the second time today. He swallows it down. If he’s going to back Bilbo up on this, he needs to avoid looking like he’s about to explode. He glances at Bilbo to distract himself, and to get an idea of the appropriate tone for the conversation. Bilbo clearly doesn’t find it funny at all. “All of them, Kili! Instagram and Twitter and Facebook –”

He pauses to consult his phone. “And Snapchat. Snapchat, Kili!”

“Her name’s Tauriel,” Kili says, sulking. “She’s not just Thranduil’s backup singer.”

Thorin has never seen that particular expression on his nephew’s face. He looks annoyed at being confronted, and also vaguely guilty. Thorin knows that expression. He’s seen it on his own face. “Have you been _talking_ to her?”

“No.”

“You’re lying,” Bilbo says immediately. Kili’s face turns red. “Unfollow her, now.”

“No!”

“You can follow her again from your personal account,” Bilbo says. “Not from your official account. And try to keep the commenting to a minimum.”

“He’s been commenting?” Thorin says. He may respect Thranduil as a musician, and be angry that Smaug is committed to screwing him over, but having his drummer flirt with Thranduil’s backup singer on the internet is more than Thorin’s willing to endure. “What kind of comments?”

“Let me see,” Bilbo says, and Kili starts squirming around in the chair, clearly torn between his desire to escape and his desire to finish his tattoo in order to force everyone else to get one. “This is from yesterday – ‘Your voice sounds like starlight feels’.”

Thorin bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Here’s another,” Bilbo says. “This is from last week, on a performance video Lasgalen posted to their official account. ‘Are you an alien? Because your voice is from another world’.”

“Stop,” Kili says miserably. Thorin is starting to feel bad for him. “I won’t comment anymore. But I won’t unfollow her.”

Thorin peers over Bilbo’s shoulder at the screen. “Scroll back up to the first one.” When Bilbo does so, Thorin points at the likes on Kili’s comment. “Doesn’t that mean she liked it?”

It’s almost comical how quickly Kili brightens up. Thorin is surprised that Kili’s this excited about, and protective of, someone he’s never met – but given that Thorin was head over heels for Bilbo three days after they met, he’s not sure he’s in a position to judge. Thorin glances at Bilbo and finds him smirking ever so slightly. “She liked it,” Bilbo says, “but from now on you’re going to use your personal account, not your official one. And please – come up with better pickup lines.”

“I like my pickup lines,” Kili says obstinately.

“Your target audience is a classically trained opera singer,” Thorin says, and Kili nods dreamily. “You need better pickup lines.”

“Are you gonna tutor me?” Kili asks. “Or Bilbo, what about you?”

“Usually I just elbow someone and spill their drink,” Bilbo says, and Thorin almost kisses him in the middle of the tattoo parlor. “I’m not good with pickup lines. Which is how I know yours are bad.”

Kili pretends to be upset by this, but he’s too excited about Thranduil’s backup singer liking his comment to put even the smallest bit of effort into keeping up the fiction. Bilbo’s phone rings. Bilbo freezes. His cheeks turn the hectic red that means he’s angry, and Thorin winces. Bilbo’s put up with a lot in regard to the ringtone changes. But this song appears to be where his patience ends.

Thorin turns around and spots the culprit. “Fili! What did you do?”

“Fergalicious is a great song,” Fili protests. “A classic!”

Bilbo seems to be nearly paralyzed with frustration. Meanwhile, the song keeps playing, and with every second it goes on he gets more upset and less capable of doing something about it. Finally Thorin plucks the phone out of his hand, accepts the call, and hands it back. That seems to help. Bilbo puts it to his ear and stalks off to the other side of the tattoo parlor.

Thorin glares at Kili. He and Fili have both been doing it, and Kili is closer. Kili looks unhappy too. “That’s taking it too far,” he says. “Next time I get his phone, I’m changing it back to Shakira.”

Shakira didn’t seem to put Bilbo into an inarticulate rage the same way as this song did. Thorin nods. When Kili speaks again, his voice is smaller than Thorin’s heard it in a while. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

What a question. “Elaborate, please.”

“About Tauriel,” Kili says. He sighs, then winces as the tattoo gun hits his skin again. “I know it’s stupid. I know she’s way out of my league and I’ve never met her. It’s just, like – she’s really talented, and she’s gorgeous, and I want to figure out how to tell her that in a way nobody’s ever said it before. It’s dumb. And I know it’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb,” Thorin says. “I’m not telling you to stop it. Just to be a little more subtle about it.”

“I don’t think people in our family do subtle,” Kili says. He doesn’t even sound like he’s trying to make fun of Thorin. He sounds like he means it.

Thorin thinks about how Bilbo always seems to know what’s going on in his head. How he can’t flirt consistently like Bilbo can, but occasionally he can do something that takes Bilbo’s breath away. “I think you’re right.”

Thorin hears Bilbo’s raised voice and his head snaps up. Bilbo is pacing back and forth in the corner, his footsteps short and furious. “No, Lobelia, I don’t want to know what you think of my apartment. I –”

A pause. “You aren’t living in it, you’re supposed to be looking in on it! I don’t care how long I’ve been gone.”

Thorin remembers hearing about a Lobelia – from Theo. That’s not a good sign. Bilbo seems to be trying to compose himself, and it’s only just working. “Yes. Fine. How’s Myrtle?”

Kili and Thorin exchange a glance. “Who’s Myrtle?” Kili whispers.

Thorin has no idea. If he had to guess, he’d say it’s a cat. Bilbo seems like the kind of person who’d have a cat. Bilbo was standing still for a moment. Now he starts pacing again. His voice holds a sharp, dangerous edge. “You had better not be doing what I think you’re doing, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. You had better not be holding Myrtle hostage so I don’t throw you out on your ears.”

A longer pause than before. Thorin watches Bilbo’s expression shift from horrified to angry to purely appalled. “Lobelia, don’t you dare –”

Thorin’s mind supplies the sound of a dial tone. Bilbo looks at the phone, then around the tattoo parlor, then back to the phone. “I can’t believe this,” he says to no one in particular. “She hung up on me.”

“That didn’t sound good,” Thorin says. Bilbo comes back towards them. He looks to be in shock. “What happened?”

“It’s my cousin,” Bilbo says. “She’s supposed to look in on my apartment for me. I just found out on Instagram – Instagram! – that she and her husband have basically moved in.”

“Kick them out,” Kili says. “We’ll help.”

“Ordinarily I would take you up on that,” Bilbo says. “But I can’t. Because, er –”

“Myrtle,” Thorin says.

“Who’s Myrtle?” Kili asks.

Bilbo shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Myrtle is, er, my cactus.”

Only the knowledge that a tattoo parlor occupied by your entire band is not a good place for a first kiss prevents Thorin from making a move. Kili, meanwhile, seems euphoric. “You have a cactus,” he says, smiling. “You named it.”

“Yes.” Bilbo shuffles his feet. “I did.”

“Thorin has a bonsai tree,” Kili says, and Thorin glares at him.

Bilbo’s eyes widen. “Does he?” he says. His voice sounds strangled.

“I don’t think he named his,” Kili says, looking at Thorin for confirmation. Thorin ratchets up the glare, but in his current mood, buoyed up by the knowledge that the girl he’s mooning after liked one of comments on her Instagram, Kili is impossible to stifle.

“Where is it?” Bilbo asks. He looks like he’s been hit over the head.

“Lake Tahoe. With my sister,” Thorin says.

“We all told Thorin to get a dog,” Kili says, apropos of nothing.

Thorin gives up on glaring at Kili and veers into exasperation. “Where would I keep a dog?”

“Lake Tahoe. With Mom,” Kili says.

“Asking someone to look after a plant is a lot different than asking them to look after a dog!”

Bilbo still seems stuck on the first part of the conversation. “A bonsai tree,” he repeats.

Kili takes it upon himself to explain. “Think like a normal tree, except tiny. My mom takes good care of it.”

“Yes, I know what a bonsai is,” Bilbo says hurriedly. He sighs. “It’s too bad my cactus can’t stay somewhere else, too.”

“We could go rescue it!” Kili says. “You live in LA, right? That’s not that far from here!”

“It’s six hours south of here,” Bilbo says. “Out of our way. We’ve got our own show tonight and one with the headliners tomorrow. I’m afraid I’ll have to put up with Lobelia holding my cactus hostage for a while longer.”

“Did she say outright she’d kill it?” Thorin asks. He’s already not fond of Bilbo’s cousin. Going after someone’s house plant is a low blow that does nothing to disprove Thorin’s original impression.

Bilbo drags a hand down his face. “No, but I know how these things work. If I do anything to her, she’ll kill it. She’s like a hyena or something. Eats you alive, but laughs creepily while she’s doing it.”

This Lobelia sounds like a nightmare. Thorin’s family could be harsh, and certainly vindictive, but Thorin doesn’t think even his grandfather would have been so passive-aggressive as to threaten a cactus. “She sounds awful,” Kili says. “Maybe we can go throw her out after the show in Lake Tahoe.”

Bilbo nods, but he still looks unhappy. Thorin thinks about his apartment, about how he gave his tree to his sister because it was the only thing in his apartment that he cared about, and realizes that he understands how Bilbo feels. Bilbo has been through enough. He shouldn’t have to worry about one of his relatives killing his cactus in a fit of pique.

Thorin nods at Bilbo and Kili and walks away while Kili is still asking Bilbo about the cactus. He takes a circuitous route through the tattoo parlor to allay suspicion before making his way over to Gandalf. Gandalf looks up. “Thorin,” he says mildly. “I’ve gotten some excellent footage of today’s activities.”

Thorin wonders what he means by that – Fili wrestling with Bofur over Bilbo’s phone? Gloin labor-coaching Nori through his first tattoo? Bilbo reading Kili the riot act over his infatuation with Thranduil’s backup singer? “I need a favor,” he says.

Gandalf sits up in his chair. “Hmm,” he says. He strokes his beard. “What sort of favor?”

Thorin glances over his shoulder at Bilbo. Bilbo’s still talking to Kili. In fact, he has his phone out and is taking pictures as the tattoo artist puts the finishing touches on Kili’s design. Thorin thinks about Bilbo and his cactus and he almost tells Gandalf that he needs advice on how to tell Bilbo he loves him. Luckily, Thorin gets ahold of himself before it comes to that. “I need you to book us a show in Los Angeles.”

* * *

“You did this.”

Thorin looks up from squeezing water out of his hair. His voice is not quite as wrecked as it was after the Portland show or the first show in San Francisco, but it’s not exactly back to normal. He thought a shower might help. He’s not sure if it worked. “Did what?”

“Good try. I got the schedule update from Gandalf,” Bilbo says. His arms are crossed over his chest. He changed into his pajamas while Thorin was in the bathroom. “For some reason, Gandalf added a show in Los Angeles. Can you think of any reason why he might have done that?”

Thorin fakes a yawn. His sweatpants have a hole in one ankle, and he pokes at it with his other foot. “No. Can you?”

“I think,” Bilbo says, “he did it because you asked him to. And you asked him to so I could rescue my cactus from my deranged cousin.”

“Technically, _we_ would be rescuing your cactus from your deranged cousin,” Thorin says. “If that’s what we were doing.”

“We, the band?” Bilbo asks.

“I’m sure they’ll want to be there,” Thorin says. “They can stand guard outside. I was thinking you and me. That ‘we’.”

Bilbo shakes his head. “No,” he says abruptly. “No, this cannot be real. You cannot have added a date to the tour in order to rescue my cactus.”

“Your cousin shouldn’t be torturing your cactus,” Thorin says. He finds it inexplicably, ridiculously cute that Bilbo named it – and after another plant. “Besides, you said you liked having a knight in shining armor.”

Bilbo stares at him, mouth slightly open in shock. “You remembered that?”

“I remember everything,” Thorin says, and then he wonders how much longer that’s going to be true. “In any case, we’re going to Los Angeles. End of story. If you’d like, we can rescue your cactus while we’re there.”

“If we rescue Myrtle, where are we going to keep her?” Bilbo asks. “She can’t live on the bus.”

Thorin doesn’t know anything about cacti. He takes Bilbo’s word for it. But he’s already got a solution to that particular problem. “We’ll take her to my sister’s in Lake Tahoe.”

“Are you sure she wouldn’t mind?” Bilbo says faintly.

Thorin texted Dis to ask her as soon as Gandalf found the booking. She was surprisingly enthusiastic about it, and it was only after Thorin thanked her and put the phone away that he considered that someone from the band might be giving her information about him and Bilbo. Most likely Kili or Fili, although Gandalf can’t be ruled out. “She won’t mind,” Thorin says.

This hotel room, the one they’ve been staying in for the past four nights, has two beds just like the one in Portland. They’ve only been using one of them. Thorin still hasn’t kissed Bilbo, but that hasn’t stopped things from getting unexpectedly heated. It’s probably Thorin’s fault – he takes up so much more space in the bed than Bilbo does that every time Bilbo stretches out some part of him winds up on top of Thorin. It might also be Thorin’s fault for sleeping with his shirt off and overreacting every time Bilbo so much as brushes against him. On the other hand, it might as well be Bilbo’s fault, for those little sounds he makes when he’s trying to get comfortable, or the way his pajama shirt exposes the beginnings of his collarbones. In the end, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The result is the same, and Thorin’s not about to complain about it.

Bilbo plugs in his phone charger and sits down on what Thorin has already started to think of as his side of the bed. “How do you think the show went tonight?”

“Good,” Thorin says. Even though it strained his voice to do so, he made it through the set without incident. Something occurs to him. “You never told me what you think of the new song.”

“From the Showbox?” Bilbo asks. When Thorin nods, he says, “I think it should go on the album.”

“You do?” Thorin says, taken aback. He’s been kicking around the idea of an album, trying to figure out which songs and which title and which cover art. Thorin keeps getting stuck on the little things, instead of the fact that his band is in a position to record a full album for the first time ever. He’s surprised – and pleased – to hear that Bilbo’s thinking about it, too.

“The last track on it, definitely,” Bilbo says. “It ends on a more hopeful note than some of the others, and since it’s the only real love song you play regularly, it needs to stand out positionally as well as thematically. I’d back it up against – hmm, maybe your solo? But – why are you looking at me like that?”

Thorin’s still not used to the way Bilbo flushes beneath his gaze. “You’re telling me what to do with it,” he says, and Bilbo sighs. “I asked you what you think.”

Bilbo looks at Thorin from beneath his eyelashes. “I liked it. Something tells me you don’t write a lot of love songs.”

Here it is again, one of those instances where Thorin’s not sure what they’re talking about. “I don’t. Just the one, really.”

“Then it needs to go on the album,” Bilbo says, as though the matter’s settled. Which it is. “I’m impressed with how precise your lyrics are. The video from the Portland concert is almost tied with the Springsteen video for views, and it hasn’t been up for even half as long.”

Thorin wishes Bilbo would lie down already. “That show was awful.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Bilbo says. “I didn’t know you were sick until after your set was over, and I had no idea from watching you perform. I felt awful about that, after.”

“Why?”

“Because I should have been able to tell,” Bilbo says. This doesn’t make sense to Thorin, and it must show on his face. Bilbo elaborates. “I’ve seen you every day for two months. I should have been able to see that something was wrong.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Thorin says, but a ball of heat has settled just below his sternum, radiating through him in little tendrils. It’s a nice feeling.

“It is to me,” Bilbo says. He’s still sitting up in bed, and Thorin’s lying on his side, facing him. He reaches out for a strand of Thorin’s wet hair and rolls it between his fingers. The side of Bilbo’s hand rests against Thorin’s temple. Thorin closes his eyes. He lets the thought of how much he loves Bilbo fill his mind, thinking maybe, somehow, Bilbo will see it in his face and he won’t have to say it.

But Thorin’s not sure he wants that at all – part of him wants to see Bilbo’s face when he tells him, regardless of whether he responds favorably or not. Bilbo’s fingers keep making their way through Thorin’s hair. When he speaks, he’s quiet, almost reflective. “Thorin? Do you still want to see my tattoo?

Thorin opens his eyes in a hurry. “Yes.”

Bilbo takes his hand away from Thorin’s face and starts unbuttoning his shirt. For a moment Thorin wants to move Bilbo’s hands away so Thorin can do it himself, like he’s thought about so many times. But Bilbo’s showing Thorin his tattoo, not inviting Thorin to strip his shirt off and pin him to the bed, and if Thorin’s being honest, that’s probably what would happen if he took over. Bilbo finishes undoing the buttons and shrugs his shirt off, baring his right shoulder.

Bilbo’s skin is pale, with a few birthmarks here and there. The tattoo is on his arm, just below his shoulder – linework, mostly black, an inverted oak leaf and an acorn beneath it. One side of the leaf is outlined in delicate streaks of red and orange and gold, as though it’s been caught at the edge by the sun. The acorn is outlined on the same edge in gold and bronze. It’s striking, the same way Bilbo is. It looks like it belongs there.

Thorin’s fingers itch to touch it. But it’s not for him, it’s for Bilbo’s parents, and Thorin isn’t going to put his hands all over that memory. “Why the oak leaf?”

“My parents had these two embossing seals,” Bilbo says. “Antiques, for stamping the wax on letters. One of them had an oak leaf on it, and the other had an acorn. I loved to play with them when I was younger. We weren’t anything, from anywhere, but it was sort of our family crest.”

He’s smiling softly. His eyes are distant. “My parents gave them to me when I graduated from college. I always wanted to do something with them, but I could never think of what.”

“You designed it yourself?”

“Of course,” Bilbo says, as though it’s obvious, as though anyone would sit down and design a tattoo. He’s quiet for a moment. “When my parents died, I couldn’t stand to look at their pictures. It hurt too much to see them the way they used to be, after I saw what they looked like when they died. My father especially – I had to identify his body at the morgue, and he – he –”

Bilbo’s voice catches as he tries to explain, but he doesn’t have to. Thorin knows. He takes Bilbo’s hand. “You don’t have to say anything else.”

“No, I – I want to,” Bilbo says. He takes a deep breath. “There’s no point in lying about it. It’s how things were. Anyway, I couldn’t look at them, but that was hard, too. I wanted to have something I could take with me, everywhere, so I could look at it and remember.”

It always comes back to memory, somehow. “Remember what?”

“All of it – the good, the bad,” Bilbo says. “Everything they were to me. Everything they still are.”

He pauses. “And how lucky I am that I’m still here.”

Thorin’s eyebrows lift before he can stop himself, and Bilbo hurries to explain. “I used to wish I’d been in the car with them. I thought it would be easier than having to rebuild after they were gone. But that isn’t what they would want for me. This is.”

“This?” Thorin asks. Bilbo is still heartbroken over his parents’ deaths – and yet he’s still moving forward, with pride. It amazes Thorin. Love knocks his breath from his lungs.

“Well,” Bilbo says, “I’m doing a job I love. I’m on tour with this utterly improbable band who moves audiences like I’ve never seen. I’ve been to places I never thought I’d see. I chugged beer in a national park and watched Kili frighten off a bear with his tambourine.”

Thorin can’t hide a smile at that. “And,” Bilbo says, with a sly glance at Thorin, “I’m sitting here with you.”

Thorin was hoping he’d make the list. He lifts Bilbo’s hand to his mouth and kisses his knuckles, and Bilbo flushes from his face right down to the ends of his collarbones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and a very special thank-you to LostGryphin, Gerec, Yoanna, and Majik for the comments. I really enjoy and look forward to hearing your thoughts.
> 
> Updates will (hopefully) be once a month. Or more.


	15. Chapter 15

“An interview?” Thorin looks up from unrolling an amp cord. The Los Angeles venue is the biggest one they’ve ever played solo, and it’s also going to be recorded – Bilbo has a sound tech coming who’s going to record all four of the songs from the LP live. Thorin doesn’t regret his decision to add the show, but this is another situation where the band could quite easily wind up out of their depth. And now Bilbo’s come up with another idea.

“An interview,” Bilbo says. “The band is picking up traction – views, social media followers, song downloads. Even merchandise. Apparently someone at Rolling Stone has been a Lonely Mountains fan for some time, and she convinced the editors to run a short profile piece on you all.”

“Not the one who said I have bedroom eyes,” Thorin says suddenly. He doesn’t remember all of the Twitter comments that the others read aloud – most of them were effusive, embarrassing, or uncomfortable – but he hasn’t forgotten the first few.

“The same,” Bilbo says. He smirks. “She wasn’t wrong, though. You do have bedroom eyes.”

Thorin has no idea how he’s supposed to respond to that. Bilbo seems to enjoy seeing him lost for words. “In any case, you’re sitting down with the reporter before the set. Then they’re going to watch the set, and the story should be up on their website by morning.”

“Is there any way we can talk to the reporter after the show?” Thorin asks.

“No,” Bilbo says. “They find that they don’t get honest answers out of artists post-show.”

That’s not so hard to imagine. Thorin would have a hard time focusing on anything in the interview except whether or not the reporter liked the show, and he doubts that obvious insecurity would produce a positive interview. The only comfort to Thorin is that the band is going to be there – although, as he thinks about it, he realizes that the band might be a problem, too. “When do we have to do it?”

“After sound-check,” Bilbo says.

After sound-check is enough time for Thorin to get nervous, but not enough time for him to wind down afterwards. “Do you have any idea what they’re going to ask?”

“Standard profile questions, I imagine,” Bilbo says. “How did the band get started, where do you get your ideas, where do you see the band going – that sort of thing.”

Thorin doesn’t think those are standard questions at all, and he’s beginning to worry that it’s too good to be true. Smaug is in motion again, and just because he hasn’t come after Thorin yet doesn’t mean he’s not going to. This is exactly the sort of thing Smaug would do – send someone to interview the band, twist their words into something unrecognizable, and throw it up on the internet to be torn to shreds. This is what happens. This is what Smaug does. And just because it hasn’t happened in a while doesn’t mean that it’s not one wrong move of Thorin’s away from happening again.

But Thorin trusts Bilbo, and Bilbo told Thorin to leave Smaug to him. “All right.”

“I’ll prep the band,” Bilbo says. “Ideally they’ll all get a chance to talk, but if I’m not certain I can keep Kili or Fili from going off half-cocked, I’ll muzzle them.”

“Tell Kili that if he makes an idiot of himself, Thranduil’s backup singer will see and be unimpressed,” Thorin says. Kili’s the real problem – at least Fili experiences occasional moments of self-awareness and shame.

“Good idea,” Bilbo says. He pauses for a moment. “Maybe I’ll accidentally tag her personal account if he behaves. We’ll see.”

“You found her personal account?” Sometimes Thorin finds Bilbo’s competence scary.

“It was easy,” Bilbo says. He smiles at Thorin and hurries off. Thorin plugs in the amp, drags his hand down his face, and tries not to wind himself up. A profile, even a short one, in Rolling Stone is a huge deal. Thror would sit his artists down for three-hour coaching sessions every day for a week before sending them into an interview with Rolling Stone, and here’s Thorin about to do such an interview with half an hour to spare. They don’t even have an album for him to refer back to. They just have their Spotify, and their posts on social media.

One of the band’s social media posts has blown up, but for reasons unrelated to their music. The photo is of Kili, Dwalin, and Nori, shirtless and with their backs to the camera, displaying their new tattoos. Bilbo captioned it ‘three down, ten to go’ and tagged the tattoo parlor, and according to Fili, the comment section on the post is full of girls (and more than a few boys) figuratively throwing their underwear. Apparently there’s also some speculating about who’s getting the next tattoo, and Bilbo, never one to pass up an opportunity to promote the band, set up a poll on the official Twitter account. So far, Bofur is winning.

Thorin can talk about the music forever and a day, but he finds it much harder to discuss the band’s origin story, or where he gets his ideas, or what the band’s goals are. Thorin doesn’t even know how to answer the last one. What’s any band’s goal, anyway – stardom? Success? Fame? Thorin wants to succeed. He wants to lift The Lonely Mountains above everyone else, so that everyone can see what Thorin’s known from the beginning. He wants to knock Smaug’s perpetual leer off his face. Thorin wants to do that quite a lot. But mostly he wants to sing and play every single day, for the rest of his life or until he forgets how.

The reporter’s name is Lindir, and as he surveys The Lonely Mountains, sandwiched onto one couch, Thorin can tell that he isn’t impressed. Lindir sets his phone down on a table. “Well,” he says, “I assume you understand how this works?”

“Maybe you should explain,” Thorin says. Lindir’s eyebrows lift, and Thorin kicks himself. It’s Rolling Stone. He could probably have used some of his grandfather’s coaching, even if Thror’s coaching involved a lot of shouting and being shot with a water gun.

“This is a short-form profile,” Lindir says. Thorin’s not sure if he’s being condescending or if he just talks like that all the time. “I will ask individual band members questions. You all have your nametags?”

Thorin checked over the nametags himself to ensure that no one wrote something ridiculous. The rest of the bandmembers are nodding. Bilbo is sitting in the corner of the room. He’s looking at Lindir as though he’s waiting for the reporter to make a mistake. Lindir is clearly aware of it, and clearly uncomfortable. “Some questions will be addressed to the entire band, at which point you are free to answer at will. If I ask a question that you are not willing to answer, your lack of response may be noted in the article.”

That sounds to Thorin like a threat. Apparently he’s not the only one who thinks so. “Is that a threat?” Gloin rumbles.

“It is standard procedure,” Lindir says, although he looks a little unnerved. Thorin is all right with him being a little scared of the band. “Shall we begin?”

He looks at Thorin for this. When Thorin nods, Lindir hits record. “Your band is currently performing under the name The Lonely Mountains, is it not?”

“We’re permanently performing under that name,” Thorin says. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“Who came up with it?”

“I did,” Kili says. He’s drawn a smiley face next to his name on the nametag. “I designed the logo, too. And I make the t-shirts.”

Lindir raises his eyebrows. “What instrument do you play?”

“Drums,” Kili says. “Do you like drums?”

“Do I – ?” Lindir blinks at him. Kili smiles back disarmingly and the reporter seems to decide that he’s way out of his depth. Thorin needs to remember that Kili is an effective anti-personnel weapon when it comes to standoffish reporters. “Next question. How did The Lonely Mountains come to be?”

He’s aiming this question at Thorin, but it’s Balin who answers. Thank Durin for Balin. “We’ve all been in the industry for quite some time,” he says. “Some of us were attached to Erebor Records. Others have played in a variety of bands over the years, while others of us are new.”

He nods at Kili and Fili. Fili waves, and Thorin resists the urge to hit himself in the face. Balin continues. “I imagine, Lindir – may I call you Lindir? – that you’re asking why we formed the band. Thorin Oakenshield is why we formed the band. He brought us together. His songs, his arrangements, his ideas. The Lonely Mountains would not exist if not for Thorin.”

Thorin hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels, because Lindir is turning to him and he has to brace himself for another question. “Thorin, I’ve been led to believe you write most of the band’s original music?”

“I do,” Thorin says. Lindir raises his eyebrows – apparently Thorin is supposed to elaborate on this, although he’s not sure what there is to elaborate on. He raises his eyebrows in response.

“Thorin’s the best lyricist, bar none,” Bofur puts in. “He writes things that move people, even if it’s not in the way they might be expecting. The first time we played Alive Again I teared up, and I wasn’t the only one! I’m Bofur, by the way.”

This interview is going off the rails, and Thorin’s not sure how he’s supposed to reel it back in. Lindir seems to feel similarly. “Bofur, would you say that Alive Again is your favorite of the band’s originals?”

“I would,” Bofur says.

“Mine’s Suckerpunch,” Dwalin puts in. He points at himself and says his name, in spite of the fact that he’s got a name tag. “Dwalin.”

“I can read,” Lindir says, and Dwalin gives him a look that says he doubts it. “The Lonely Mountains have also become known for your covers of existing rock and country songs. Many people’s first encounter with your music came when Bruce Springsteen retweeted your cover of Born to Run. How did you feel about that?”

Finally, a question Thorin’s capable of answering. “It would have been enough of an honor for him to watch our video, let alone share it,” Thorin says. Thror is probably clawing at the inside of his coffin. “It was a dream come true.”

Lindir seems taken aback by this. Then he smiles a little. “The Lonely Mountains were obscure until two months ago. Now your downloads have spiked and you’re playing solo shows and opening for the Indigo Girls. Why the Indigo Girls?”

“They asked us,” Thorin says.

“It’s an interesting move,” Lindir says. “I wouldn’t expect your audiences to overlap.”

“They’re skilled musicians, and it’s a privilege to perform with them. It’s not about particular audiences,” Thorin says. He catches the implication Lindir’s slid into the question, and while he’s not going to answer, he’s not going to dodge it, either. “There’s one audience. That’s who I’m aiming for. Who we’re aiming for.”

“If that’s who you’re aiming for,” Lindir says, “where are your ambitions headed?”

“All the way to the top,” Fili says. He squares his shoulders proudly. “We believe in what we’re doing. It seems like there are some people out there who believe in us, too.”

That’s a better answer than Thorin would have given, and he’s still thinking of how impressed he is with his nephew when Lindir fires off another question at him. “Thorin, you’re the lead singer and the main lyricist. Have you ever considered going solo?”

Shocked silence from the band. Then Bilbo speaks up. His voice is icy. “I told you not to ask anything pertaining to a solo career.”

“I did not give you veto power over the interview questions!” Lindir sounds nervous, and when Thorin glances at Bilbo’s expression, he understands why. “I’ll withdraw it.”

“No, I’ll answer it,” Thorin says. He meets Lindir’s eyes. “I haven’t considered it, and I’m not going to. The Lonely Mountains are a band, not a lead singer and a backing track. I’m here talking to you because of them. If they want to go solo, I’ll wish them well – but if they want to get rid of me, they’re going to have to leave.”

Lindir’s face gives nothing away. “So you would say that the support of the band matters to you?”

“We’re family,” Gloin growls before Thorin can answer. “That’s what families do.”

“I see,” Lindir says. “This question is for the entire band, excepting Thorin. Do you feel that the rumors surrounding Thorin’s sexual orientation have impacted your success in any way?”

Thorin feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. Even if Lindir hadn’t told him to be silent, he wouldn’t know what to say. He should have expected this, or something like it. He should have known that this was too good to be true. And Bilbo – this was Bilbo’s idea.

A pen flies through the air and bounces off Lindir’s forehead. Lindir yelps. “I told you not to ask anything irrelevant, and that certainly qualifies,” Bilbo snaps, as angry as Thorin’s ever heard him. “What decade do you think this is?”

“It’s relevant,” Lindir protests, rubbing his head. He looks unhappy, too – but not defensive, which makes Thorin think he didn’t want to ask the question any more than Bilbo wanted him to. “Country, folk, and alt-country aren’t genres that are known for their friendliness towards the LGBT community. I want to know about –”

“How the rumors surrounding Thorin’s sexual orientation have impacted our success?” Fili says sharply. “They aren’t rumors. He’s bi.”

“Everybody knows that,” Nori puts in. “Old news.”

“I’m not sure I understand the premise of your question,” Balin says mildly. The only way Thorin knows he’s angry is by the fact that his fist is clenched on his thigh. “If Thorin’s sexual orientation, which is none of your business, had a negative impact on our success, you wouldn’t be here interviewing us.”

“Like Gloin said,” Dwalin rumbles, “we’re family. Anybody who comes at Thorin is going to have to go through us. And we’re a lot to go through.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. Lindir casts a nervous eye at the muscles bulging in Dwalin’s forearms. “So I’m to assume the answer to my question is no?”

“I actually think it’s been helpful,” Kili pipes up. Thorin is still struggling to keep his facial features under control. “It doesn’t matter if you like guys or girls – Thorin’s songs can go for both. So you can say it’s had an impact, if you want. But you’d better say it’s a good one, or I’m going to –”

Someone punches Kili in the stomach, and whatever threat he was about to make disappears in a whoosh of air. “Yes,” Ori says primly. “It’s impacted our success in a good way.”

Oin leans forward. “What you’ve got to understand is, we’re not quite country. We’re not quite folk, we’re not quite rock, and we’re not quite ready for half the things we’re doing. But we’re going to do our damnedest, and we can’t do that without every single person in the band. Me, I play the musical saw. I’m in one song. But you’d best believe I make sure it’s a good song.”

Lindir stares at them, open-mouthed. Bilbo prompts him. “Do you have any other questions?”

“Er, yes,” Lindir says. He swallows. “If you could tell your fans something, what would you tell them? Conversely, if you could say one thing to people who are unfamiliar with your music, what would it be?”

Thorin studies the reporter. He doesn’t look happy about this situation at all. In fact, Thorin almost thinks he feels bad – and then Thorin’s wondering who gave him the list of questions. Thorin turns to Kili. “Kili, would you like to say something to our fans?”

“We love you,” Kili says, smiling. “We wouldn’t be here without you. We play music because we love to – and all of you make loving music really, really fun.”

Bilbo is almost certainly thinking of ways to weaponize Kili for the next interview. Assuming they get a next interview, with anyone, after this disaster. Lindir looks slightly less tortured. “Thorin, perhaps you’d like to speak to people who are unfamiliar with The Lonely Mountains?”

Thorin wishes somebody else would answer that question. Maybe Balin – Balin’s good at these kinds of things. Or Kili. Or Oin, who apparently keeps oddly inspirational statements on tap. What would Thorin say to those people? Is he supposed to convince them to listen to his band and not someone else’s? Is he supposed to introduce himself, like they’re opening a set? What’s the right thing here?

Then Thorin decides it doesn’t matter. The interview is going to be a nightmare anyway. “Give us a listen, if you feel like it. We’ll be out here playing whether you do or not.”

Lindir nods. Then he ends the recording and stands up. “Thank you all for your time. I’ll be watching the show, and you should see the article posted by tomorrow morning.”

He leaves, and Bilbo follows him out. Thorin slumps back on the couch as much as he can – he’s stuck between Balin and Bombur and doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver. “Well, we botched that.”

“I don’t know,” Balin says. “We didn’t threaten his life, and the only one who threw something was Bilbo.”

Speaking of Bilbo – Thorin wonders what he thinks about this situation. Based on the way he reacted, Thorin doesn’t think he knew what Lindir was going to ask, but he wonders why Bilbo didn’t expect it. Thorin was half-expecting it to come up anyway. And now he’s sitting backstage at a five-hundred seat venue wondering why Bilbo would have set up that interview. Wondering why, in spite of what the band said, in spite of how unflinchingly they stood behind him, he still feels sick to his stomach.

The others start final preparations for the show. Instrument tuning, lyric flash cards, rehearsing a few difficult sections together. The couch is mostly unoccupied, and Thorin sprawls out on it, evicting Kili from one end to give himself more space. He closes his eyes and tries to parse out the sickness. He’s angry. Some part of Thorin is always angry at the unfairness of all of it, but that’s not all there is. Shame – shame that the band had to spend half the interview talking about Thorin’s bisexuality instead of about their music. Hurt, because it hurts to hear something so personal brought up as a detriment to the band’s success. Betrayal.

Betrayal, because Thorin never expected to be put in this position again. Because he thought – maybe stupidly – that Bilbo wouldn’t let such a thing happen.

“Thorin.”

It’s Bilbo’s voice. Thorin opens his eyes. He can’t stop himself. Bilbo looks as miserable and sick on the outside as Thorin feels on the inside. “Did you take Lindir to his seat?”

“Gandalf’s with him,” Bilbo says. He reaches out to Thorin, then pulls his hand back, and that hurts even worse than everything else. “Thorin, I didn’t know.”

“I know,” Thorin says dully. “I can’t expect you to know everything.”

If it’s possible, this makes Bilbo even unhappier. “I want you to,” he says. “I want you to expect that of me, because I can, and I do – and I should. I should have seen that coming, and I should have warned you. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

Thorin sits up. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “I don’t blame you.”

“I do,” Bilbo says. “I should have done something.”

“You threw something at him,” Thorin points out. He wouldn’t have expected Bilbo to have such good aim.

“I wanted to kill him,” Bilbo hisses.

Thorin can see a problem with this. “If you want to kill him, you’re going to have to get in line behind everybody else in the band.”

“No,” Bilbo says matter-of-factly. “I’m gay. I get to go first.”

“Why does being gay mean that you get to go first?” Thorin asks. “He was after me. I should get to go first.”

“But you won’t,” Bilbo says. Thorin just looks at him. Bilbo curls his hands into frustrated fists and lets them go. “Thorin, when he said that, you looked like someone shot you. You didn’t even get angry. I’ve seen you get angrier at Kili for losing everyone’s left socks in the laundry. Why didn’t you stand up for yourself?”

“What would have been the point?” Thorin asks. Bilbo’s eyes widen, and Thorin keeps talking before Bilbo can interrupt him. “What would I have accomplished? Defensive? Yes. Difficult? Yes. Oversensitive? Of course. I know what happens when this comes up, and it doesn’t change no matter how I respond. It’s not worth it.”

“Thorin.” Bilbo catches Thorin’s hand. “It is worth it. You are.”

He lifts Thorin’s hand to his mouth and kisses Thorin’s palm. Even in his current mood, Bilbo’s mouth on his skin is enough to make Thorin catch his breath. Bilbo folds Thorin’s fingers closed around it, as though his kiss is a tangible thing that he wants to make sure Thorin doesn’t lose, and kisses Thorin’s knuckles for good measure before he lets Thorin’s hand fall.

“Good show,” Bilbo murmurs, and he backs away.

Thorin realizes how much he loves Bilbo, even in the midst of this. For knowing Thorin well enough to leave him space, for letting Thorin know that he’s there if Thorin wants him. For knowing what Thorin was upset about without even having to ask, but knowing that Thorin doesn’t blame him. For sticking around long enough to know him at all. Thorin rests the hand holding Bilbo’s kiss over his heart and tries to take himself elsewhere. He doesn’t want to know what will happen if he goes out for a show with this on his mind.

Thorin spots Lindir in the front row, where Bilbo usually sits. Gandalf is sitting next to him, possibly to prevent him from escaping, and the more Thorin thinks about the entire mess of an interview, the more he realizes what he has to do now. He screwed up the interview, but he can make sure Lindir has to write about an incredible show. Thorin makes himself raise the energy level of the show. He throws the solo into the show mid-set, follows it up with Jolene, and adds Someday Soon into the mix. Thorin never changes his set list after it’s taped down, and the band’s only practiced Someday Soon five times. It’s absurd. It’s reckless. And it works.

The band matches Thorin’s intensity. Kili plays in a much more controlled fashion than usually, unleashing his trademark frantic energy in devastating bursts. Bofur’s flute playing has an expressiveness Thorin’s rarely heard. The harmonicas and accordions – and Bifur’s violin, which Thorin’s been neglecting in arrangements for nearly a year – meld with the rest instead of clashing good-naturedly against it. It’s a more restrained show than they usually play, but it’s precise and electric beneath the surface. In this show Thorin doesn’t even check the audience. He lets his eyes skim over them and then pulls them up, above it all.

This style of show wouldn’t work for a crowd in Seattle or Portland, or anywhere on the Midwestern leg of the tour. Those audiences give artists the benefit of the doubt, open to the idea of having a good time instead of cool and unconcerned about it. All the unfocused, whimsical playing in the world won’t crack this Los Angeles audience’s veneer. Thorin distills the band’s efforts into an arrow-point of sound and emotion and lets it fly.

Thorin knows they’re doing well. But his focus on the show is masking something else, that weird swamp of anger and hurt and betrayal in the pit of his stomach. He can’t think about it right now. It fills his mind, because Bilbo is right – Thorin didn’t defend himself, not at all. He’s gotten into bar fights over lesser anti-gay slights than having what should be a proud moment for the band turned into a referendum on Thorin’s problem. If Bilbo heard Thorin calling it a problem, he’d tell Thorin to shut up with complete seriousness. Can Thorin really blame all this on his grandfather being underwhelmed when he came out? What was he expecting, a party? He should have known.

In short, Thorin concludes, towards the end of the most intense show he’s ever played, this is entirely his fault.

They close the show with Suckerpunch, take one abbreviated bow, and step offstage. They get waylaid on their way to the green room for some autographs. When Thorin gets back to the green room at last, Bilbo and Gandalf are both waiting for him. Lindir stands between them. Thorin hopes this isn’t some sort of forced apology session. “Did they drag you in here?”

“No, I came on my own,” Lindir says. “They thought I was coming back here to make trouble, which is why they followed me.”

“If you’re not here to make trouble, then why are you here?” Thorin asks, aware that he’s being needlessly confrontational. He picked a great time to grow a spine.

“I came to apologize,” Lindir says. “That question wasn’t originally on my list. My boss made me put it down – right after he got a call from someone very high up in the industry.”

Smaug. It must be. So he’s back. Thorin knew he wouldn’t stay away, but it makes him uneasy to think about it. Lindir keeps talking. “I’m cutting references to it from the interview. Most of the profile will consist of a review of the performance – which was excellent, by the way. L.A. audiences don’t typically get that into it.”

Thorin thought as much. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Lindir says. “It’s the bare minimum.”

Thorin thinks about it for a moment, then decides to offer Lindir something. “If you have to mention it, use Kili’s answer. And only Kili’s answer.”

“I won’t mention it,” Lindir says. But he’s smiling lightly when he says it.

He walks away, and Thorin looks at Bilbo and Gandalf. Gandalf is smiling and nodding – he’s happy with Thorin’s handling of the situation. Bilbo looks wary. Why wary? “I didn’t know you could do that,” he says.

“Do what?”

“That show was frightening,” Bilbo says. “Good frightening, but still –”

“It’s L.A.,” Thorin says. He shrugs. Then he remembers why they’re in L.A. in the first place. “Do you think your cousin’s at home?”

“My cousin?” Bilbo stares at him. “No. You cannot be planning to rescue my cactus now. It’s eleven o’clock!”

“Check her Snapchat,” Gandalf advises. It shouldn’t surprise Thorin that Gandalf knows what Snapchat is, but it does.

“All right,” Bilbo says, pulling out his phone, “but –”

He taps the screen, then pauses. “No, they aren’t. They’re at one of the dance clubs downtown. But they’ll probably be back by the time we’re done with load-out.”

“Leave load-out to us,” Kili says, popping up behind Thorin. Thorin jumps. “Go get Myrtle. When you’re trying to resolve a hostage crisis, you have to seize every opportunity that presents itself.”

This strikes Thorin as surprisingly good advice. Then he runs into a problem. “How are we going to get there without the bus?”

This earns him exasperated looks from Gandalf, Kili, and Bilbo. “Thorin,” Gandalf says, “have you never heard of Uber?”

* * *

Uber, on balance, seems like an excellent way to get murdered. Thorin says this to Bilbo only after they climb out of the car. Bilbo is inputting a rating for the Uber driver into his phone; at Thorin’s words, he looks up. “Well, that’s terrifying. Too bad it doesn’t happen – it would make a great horror movie.”

“It never happens?” Thorin persists. “I can’t see how it’s a good idea to get a car with a stranger and trust them to take you where you want to go.”

“Well, we made it here in one piece,” Bilbo says dryly. He gestures at the three-story apartment building. “I’m on the third floor. I want us to be in and out before Lobelia gets back. Ideally, she won’t know we were there until she goes to try to send me more blackmail photos of Myrtle.”

“Blackmail photos?” Thorin says. “That sounds like an escalation.”

“Rubber bands, googly eyes, the whole nine yards,” Bilbo says. Thorin, meanwhile, is wrestling with the fact that hearing Bilbo say the words ‘googly eyes’ makes him feel inexplicably warm inside. “Let’s go.”

They use the stairs. Bilbo seems oddly phobic of the elevator. Three flights up and partly down a hall, Bilbo stops in front of a corner apartment. They haven’t been talking much since they left the venue, but Bilbo says something as he’s unlocking the door. “Sorry about what it looks like, in there. I never really unpacked.”

He opens the door, and Thorin follows him in. Immediately he sees what Bilbo means about not unpacking, but it’s not as messy as he expected – there are three neat stacks of boxes in one corner of the living room, but that’s it. Thorin sees bookshelves, at least two of them, one in the living room next to a small flat-screen TV and one in a hall that Thorin suspects leads back towards a bedroom and a bathroom. The kitchen is off the living room as well, and the washing machine and dryer. It’s surprisingly sparse, nothing like the yellow house in Seattle. It looks like Bilbo is in the process of moving out. It doesn’t look anything like a home.

“Let’s hurry,” Bilbo says. He runs a hand through his hair. “We need to find Myrtle.”

Bilbo heads into the kitchen. Thorin heads down the hall towards the bedroom and bathroom. He tries the bathroom first, checking in the cabinet and under the sink and in the bathtub, finding nothing except an economy-size box of tampons and a vibrator underneath the sink. Thorin decides not to tell Bilbo about that. After determining that the cactus is not in the bathroom, Thorin makes his way into the bedroom.

It doesn’t look like Bilbo’s bedroom, probably because someone else has been living in it. For one thing, the bed’s unmade. Bilbo always makes the bed in the hotel rooms. Thorin tries to help, but he usually gets shooed away for doing it wrong. The closet hangs open, clothes spilling out of it. There’s makeup scattered on the bedside table. Thorin sees a pair of frilly underwear on the floor.

It’s a good thing Bilbo intends for them to leave without ever confronting Lobelia. Thorin has some words for her, none of which are very tactful and all of which are the definition of impolite.

The cactus sitting on the windowsill – next to the open window – fits the description Bilbo gave of the hostage photos. It’s still wearing the googly eyes. Thorin scoops the cactus in its clay pot off the windowsill and backs up to a safe distance before he removes the eyes. With his luck, he’d probably knock it out the window. He drops the googly eyes on the pillow and leaves the room, kicking the pair of underwear aside with the toe of his boot.

Bilbo is still in the kitchen when Thorin makes his way back into the living room. All of the kitchen cabinets are open, as is the pantry. Bilbo is standing there with his head in the refrigerator. As Thorin watches, he extracts his head from the refrigerator, slams it shut, and sticks his head in the freezer. The oven and the dishwasher are both hanging open. He’s been very thorough about it, but also quite frantic. “If she killed Myrtle,” Bilbo is muttering, “the police are never going to find her body.”

“I found Myrtle."

Bilbo nearly slams the freezer door on his own head. “Really? Where?”

Thorin holds out the cactus in its pot, and Bilbo takes it, cradling it as much as you can cradle anything that’s covered in spines. “The bedroom. It – she – was on the windowsill.”

Bilbo holds up the cactus, examining it from every angle. Thorin can’t tell if this is a good sign or not. “I think she’s okay. I don’t know very much about cactuses, though.”

“She seems fine,” Bilbo says. He sighs. “This whole enterprise is too ridiculous for words. My apartment is a mess. There’s rotting food in the fridge, the dishwasher hasn’t been used since I left, and I found mold on the clothes in the washing machine. How do people live like this?”

“I don’t know,” Thorin says. He wouldn’t call himself a neat freak, but this is a level of mess beyond what he’s willing to handle. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Bilbo says. He looks exhausted. “I’ll probably add Lobelia to the lease and take myself off of it, which means she’ll be on the hook for whatever astronomical cleaning fees this place is going to pull. As for everything else?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know what to do with it. There’s not much room for it where I live now.”

Does he mean the bus? Or the hotel rooms? “Where do you live now?”

“On the road,” Bilbo says. “With you.”

No. Don’t do it. Do not kiss Bilbo in the middle of his filthy, cousin-infested apartment. Do not kiss Bilbo while Bilbo’s holding a cactus. Thorin makes up two new rules for himself on the spot and casts around for something else to say. “Well, is there anything else here you want to take with you? We’ve got room for a few things.”

“The seals,” Bilbo says after a moment. He offers Myrtle to Thorin. “I’ll go get them.”

Thorin studies Myrtle. It’s not the sort of cactus Thorin was expecting Bilbo to have, although he’s coming to the conclusion that some of the plants he’s considered to be cactuses aren’t actually cactuses at all. Like aloe plants, for instance. Those aren’t cactuses, but that was definitely what Thorin thought Myrtle would be. Myrtle is round and light green. It looks very, very pointy. Thorin holds onto the pot with both hands, but keeps it at arm’s length. He’s not particularly clumsy, but this would not be a good time to start.

Bilbo comes back. He’s holding a narrow box made of dark wood, and a small duffel bag stuffed with something or other slung over his shoulder. His hair is tousled further than usual from how many times he’s run his hand through it. Thorin makes another rule: He is not allowed to kiss Bilbo in Bilbo’s filthy, cousin-infested apartment while either of them is holding a cactus. “Is that everything?”

“Is it too much?” Bilbo slides the duffel bag off his shoulder.

Thorin lets go of the cactus with one hand, catches the bag, and slings it over his own shoulder. “No, we’ve got space. Should we go?”

Bilbo hesitates a moment. He runs his fingers over the lid of the box. “Do you want to see the seals?”

Thorin nods, and Bilbo opens the box. It’s lined with dusty red velvet, and it smells old. Thorin can’t think of a better way to describe it than that. He reaches for one, then looks at Bilbo to make sure it’s all right. When Bilbo nods, Thorin picks it up and turns it over. It’s got a wooden handle, made of the same wood the box is carved from. The stamp bears an oak leaf, very much like the one tattooed on Bilbo’s arm. Thorin touches the stamp, traces the ridges with the tip of one finger, and sets it back. He feels the same about touching these as he does about touching the tattoo itself. Like it’s not something he should put his hands on, even if Bilbo says it is.

“Do you have anything from your family?” Bilbo asks. He shuts the box and tucks it under his arm. “I mean, like this?”

“Whatever we do have, it’s with my sister,” Thorin says. “My grandfather didn’t like old things. He wanted everything to be new.”

Dis, who got her doctorate in clinical psychology, thinks Thror’s obsession with the shiny and new came from how desperately poor he was growing up. By the time he was fifteen, Thror was married with a son. When he decided to start the record company, he took out a massive loan with compounding interest rates that no one ever thought he’d be able to pay back. Old things reminded him, Dis theorized, of how things used to be.

“What do you want?” Bilbo asks Thorin, and just like that, they’re not talking about seals and antiques and Thorin’s grandfather anymore.

Thorin can’t say it. He’s made a lot of rules to prevent himself from saying it. But he switches the cactus from his left hand to his right, steps closer to Bilbo, and fits his hand against the side of Bilbo’s face. Bilbo blinks, startled. Then he tilts his head against Thorin’s hand and lets his eyes fall shut. Thorin runs his thumb over Bilbo’s lower lip, and that turns out to be a mistake, because Bilbo’s lips part ever so slightly and desire buries its fist in Thorin’s stomach . It looks like Bilbo is waiting to be kissed. Like he’s waiting for Thorin to kiss him.

Thorin is looking for a place to put down the cactus so he’ll only be breaking one of his rules when the door to the apartment swings open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and to Arrowsboi, elengel, LostGryphin, JuniAsat, and HM for leaving comments. You all help make writing fun, and I'm always appreciative of your feedback.


	16. Chapter 16

Thorin lets go of Bilbo, and they both turn from facing each other to facing the door. A man and a woman are standing in the doorway. Thorin smells pot, and a second later, alcohol, when the intruders step further into the apartment and shut the door behind them. The woman points at them. “Otho, call the police! Don’t let them get away!”

The man – Otho – reaches for his phone. Thorin, sensing trouble on the horizon, steps forward and plucks it out of his hand. It’s not hard. Otho is drunk, and his motor control isn’t the best. Thorin sets the phone down on the counter, hides the cactus behind his back, and steps back to Bilbo’s side. Although Thorin is beginning to wonder whether he should be standing at Bilbo’s side or holding Bilbo back.

“Really?” Bilbo asks. He’s nearly incandescent with rage. “You’re really planning on calling the police right now?”

“Of course I am. I don’t know who you are!”

“You don’t know who I – you know perfectly well who I am, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins!” Bilbo explodes. “This is my apartment!”

He glances at Otho, then does a double-take. “And that is my shirt, thank you very much! Give it back!”

Thorin glances at the shirt in question. It’s black and silky looking, buttoned up, but the buttons stop about an inch and a half lower than normal. If Thorin didn’t already want to murder these two for trashing Bilbo’s apartment and kidnapping his cactus, he’d want to do it now, simply because he wants to see Bilbo in that shirt and this idiot is wearing it. Thorin wants to see Bilbo in that shirt, and then take it off of him almost immediately afterward.

This is not a good time for that thought. Lobelia is pointing at Bilbo, who does not seem to appreciate being pointed at. “You never said you were coming back!”

“I don’t need to say when I’m coming back. This is my apartment!” Bilbo snaps. “I asked you to keep an eye on my apartment, not to move in!”

“What was I supposed to do? You never came back,” Lobelia says. She doesn’t look like Thorin was expecting her to look. From Bilbo’s reactions to the phone call, Thorin was expecting the Wicked Witch of the West in knockoff designer clothes, but she looks like a normal person. Looks can be deceiving. “You were off gallivanting around the upper Midwest –”

“Gallivanting? I was doing my job!” Bilbo says.

Lobelia throws an appraising look at Thorin. Thorin feels vaguely uncomfortable. “Looks like that’s not all you’re doing.”

Thorin nearly has to drop the duffel bag in order to stop Bilbo from launching himself at Lobelia. Lobelia, startled, takes a step back. “I wouldn’t antagonize him,” Thorin says. His arm is around Bilbo’s waist; he’s still hiding the cactus behind his back.

“No, please continue,” Bilbo says. He’s not trying all that hard to get away from Thorin, but Thorin’s aware that Bilbo’s a lot stronger than he looks. “Let’s call the cops! I’ll tell them that two intoxicated ruffians are squatting in my apartment, you can tell them I don’t live here, and we’ll see who they believe!”

“No one’s calling the cops,” Thorin says. He’s usually not the reasonable one in a situation, unless that situation happens to involve Fili and Kili. But Lobelia and her husband are definitely drunk, possibly stoned, and clearly ready to fight. Meanwhile, Bilbo is about to kill someone – probably Lobelia, maybe Lobelia’s husband, maybe Thorin if Thorin gets in the way. “We were just picking something up. Bilbo? Let’s go.”

“Yes, listen to your boyfriend,” Lobelia jeers, and Thorin reminds himself that this is a bad time to exult in being referred to as Bilbo’s boyfriend. “Leave now, or you’ll never see your precious cactus again.”

Thorin can’t resist a few theatrics. He produces the cactus with a flourish. “Why did you think we were here?”

Lobelia’s face turns red. “How dare you?”

“How dare we? How dare you?” Bilbo spits. “This is my apartment, this is my cactus – and that’s my shirt, Otho! Take it off before I kill you!”

“As if you could,” Lobelia sneers.

Otho seems slightly more frightened of Bilbo than his wife is. In Thorin’s opinion, that makes Otho the smarter of the two, in spite of the fact that he looks like he can’t think his way out of a paper bag. He looks down at the shirt. He plucks at the hem. “It smells bad.”

“Of course it smells bad, you’ve been wearing it,” Bilbo says. His voice is scathing. “Fortunately, Otho, there’s this magical thing you’ve never heard of called a washing machine, which makes filthy clothes clean again. Give me my shirt.”

“Otho, don’t do it,” Lobelia says. She’s glaring at Bilbo.

Bilbo glares right back. “Thorin, if he won’t give it back, let go of me and I’ll get it.”

That sounds like a bad idea. Instead of letting go of Bilbo, Thorin aims a glare of his own at Otho in the hopes that it will encourage him to give up the shirt. It does. He unbuttons it, revealing a stained undershirt, then holds it out to Bilbo. Bilbo doesn’t seem to want to touch it, but he takes it between thumb and forefinger and holds it out to the side. “Thank you. We’ll be going. Enjoy your filth.”

Thorin isn’t entirely sure he can trust Bilbo not to lunge at them, so he keeps his arm around Bilbo’s waist all the way to the door and down the hall, letting go only when they reach the stairs. Before they start down, they trade items – Bilbo gets the cactus, and Thorin gets the stinking shirt. Then they start down the stairs, Thorin just ahead of Bilbo.

“Sorry about that,” Bilbo says after a moment, his voice echoing strangely in the stairwell. “I wasn’t expecting that to happen.”

“It’s fine,” Thorin says.

“I’m sure I’ll find it funny in a few days,” Bilbo continues. He sighs. “Or years.”

“It’ll make a good story,” Thorin observes. “Even now. The others will be sorry they missed it.”

“I think it’s probably a good thing that Kili missed it,” Bilbo says. “Otherwise – oh, no!”

Thorin looks back just in time to see Bilbo trip going down the stairs. He rights himself, but the cactus flies out of his hand and sails up into the air. After that, everything seems to happen in slow motion. Thorin catches a glimpse of Bilbo’s face, his expression part shock, part horror, and part you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me. Thorin tracks the arc of the cactus through the air and decides that he’s not about to sacrifice the cactus after playing the scariest show of his life and fighting about his bisexuality with a reporter from Rolling Stone in order to get it. He drops the duffel bag and the shirt, catches the stair rail for balance, and reaches out to catch the cactus.

Thorin catches it. Unfortunately, he catches it cactus-side down, and no small number of spines sink into the palm of his hand. Thorin swears, and keeps swearing. Swearing about it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Thorin!” Bilbo scrambles down the stairs towards him. “Are you – oh, no, your hand!”

“Myrtle’s fine,” Thorin says. He clenches his jaw.

“Myrtle’s fine, but what about your hand?” Bilbo sets the box with the seals down on the stairs and lifts Thorin’s cactus-embedded hand up to eye level. He’s standing one stair up from Thorin. “Hold on. I’m going to take it out.”

“Is that safe?” Thorin asks. He very much wants the cactus out of his hand, but he’s also concerned that it’s going to hurt as much coming out as it did going in.

“Yes, it’s safe,” Bilbo says. “Hold still.”

Thorin’s expecting a vaguely scientific process, involving the situation being studied from all angles. Instead, Bilbo secures Thorin’s hand with a grip on his wrist, grabs the cactus by the base of the pot, and yanks it up. Thorin snarls and pulls his hand away – but the cactus is out, and, as Thorin inspects his palm in the half-light of the stairwell, he realizes that all the spines came out with it. Bilbo looks with him. Then, after a moment’s pause, he sets the cactus down on the stairs next to the seals.

“Why did you do that?” he demands. “You’re a musician, Thorin – you need your hands!”

Thorin shrugs. Now that the cactus is out, he feels better about the whole thing – but it still hurts. “You need your cactus.”

“No,” Bilbo says. “Not as much as you need your hand.”

“We came all this way to get the cactus. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to it,” Thorin says. He glances at it, sitting innocuously on the stairs. It doesn’t look damaged at all. “It’s fine, and I’m fine. Let’s go.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo says. Thorin looks and finds Bilbo staring at him. “It’s a cactus. That had to hurt.”

“Not much.” What is Thorin going to say to Bilbo? I don’t care about my hand as much as I care about you, I promised I’d rescue your cactus and I’m going to, I would do anything for you, I love you? He can’t say that, any of it. All he can do is look at Bilbo, standing there on the step above him, and think about how much he wants him. Thorin feels the last thread holding his self-control snap.

“Thorin,” Bilbo says again, and he’s starting to look frustrated, “will you just –”

Thorin kisses him in the middle of his sentence.

Later, Thorin will probably wonder what possessed him to kiss Bilbo in a half-darkened stairwell with his hand aching from cactus spines, but at the moment, all he’s wondering is why he waited so long. Bilbo’s mouth is soft, surprised against his – but only for a moment. Then he wraps his arms around Thorin’s neck and kisses him back like he’s been waiting for this. Bilbo’s hands tangle themselves up in Thorin’s hair, not just the braids but all of it, cupping the back of Thorin’s head and drawing him in closer.

Thorin loses control of his breathing almost immediately. His heartbeat follows in quick succession. He uses the non-cactus hand to pull Bilbo against him. Thorin lets his teeth graze Bilbo’s lower lip and Bilbo gasps into his mouth. They’re pressed so close together that Thorin feels Bilbo’s breathing shift, rapid and unsteady, and Thorin draws back to let him breathe, only to kiss him again a moment later. He can’t help it. He lifts both hands and cups Bilbo’s face in them, tilting his chin up so he can kiss him more.

It’s a relief to kiss him at last. It feels like everything Thorin wanted it to and more. Better than the dance, better than sleeping in the same bed and toying with Bilbo’s hair and his collarbones until Bilbo’s face is flushed and his breathing is as unsteady as it is now. Bilbo slides one of his hands out of Thorin’s hair and runs his fingers down the side of Thorin’s neck and now it’s Thorin’s turn to gasp.

Thorin keeps thinking that it can’t go on like this, and being surprised all over again when it does, moment after moment, heartbeat after heartbeat. Some part of his mind that’s not drowning in emotion and sensation wonders if he could put this feeling in a song, somehow. But Bilbo’s hands are outlining the tendons in Thorin’s neck, the curve of his jaw, and Thorin decides that this feeling is his. For as long as he can keep it, it’s going to belong to him and him alone.

It might be the longest first kiss in history. Thorin’s still not going to be the one who breaks it. Finally Bilbo draws back, but only slightly. His forehead rests against Thorin’s cheek. His skin is hot. “Do you know,” he says, and his breathing is ragged in a way that makes Thorin want to start the whole thing over again, “how long I’ve been waiting for you to do that?”

“No,” Thorin says, and Bilbo laughs a little. “Tell me?”

“Longer than you think,” Bilbo says enigmatically. Thorin steps back a bit, to look askance at him, and Bilbo makes a frustrated little noise and pulls him back in. “Why did you wait?”

“It had to be the right moment,” Thorin says. “You only get one first kiss with someone, and I wanted it to be perfect.”

Bilbo doesn’t ask Thorin why he thought the stairwell of Bilbo’s apartment building would be a good place for a first kiss. Maybe he understands that Thorin doesn’t know, either. “We need to go,” he says.

“Why?” Thorin asks. He wants to kiss Bilbo again, and leaving the stairwell means it’s going to be postponed until they’re back to the hotel.

“Because,” Bilbo says, and his voice takes on a tone Thorin’s never heard before, one that makes a flash of heat run through him, “there are some things I need to do – to you. With you. And I can’t do them here.”

Thorin’s breathing goes ragged. He can’t help it. Bilbo laughs again . He lifts a hand, turns Thorin’s head slightly to the side, and kisses the side of Thorin’s neck. “Things like this,” Bilbo continues, while Thorin goes to pieces under his hands and his mouth. “What do you think?”

Thorin takes in a breath, only to lose it immediately when Bilbo’s lips do something paralyzing where his neck meets his jaw. “I’m not thinking,” he manages.

“Keep not thinking,” Bilbo says. He kisses Thorin’s neck again, gentler than before. “Let’s go.”

Thorin is dreading going back to the band, but as it turns out, the band has finished load-out and gone back to the hotel. Kili sent the text, complete with four or five cactus emojis. Bilbo and Thorin have been gone for three hours. Three hours. Thorin wonders how many of those hours were spent on the kiss. It could have been two of them, for all he knows – and he doesn’t care. He just wants this to keep going. It can’t be real. Thorin can’t be getting what he wants. He’s been getting so many things he wants over the last two months. It has to end sometime.

But not tonight.

Thorin feels like a teenager. He can’t keep his hands off of Bilbo, and Bilbo seems to be having a similar problem when it comes to him. He’s certain their Uber driver is extremely annoyed with them, because by the time they reach the hotel, Bilbo is practically in Thorin’s lap. Thorin would probably be annoyed if he was the Uber driver. As it is, Thorin can’t even bring himself to apologize.

Bilbo has the cactus and the seals. Thorin has the duffel bag and the shirt. It’s a mark of how completely Bilbo’s entranced him that Thorin is able to ignore the odor rising off the shirt at all. They ride the elevator up to their room on the fourth floor. Bilbo’s hands are full. Thorin still has one free, and he puts his arm around Bilbo’s waist and pulls Bilbo back against his chest. Bilbo makes a startled sound. Thorin is never going to get tired of surprising him. He almost tells Bilbo that. He almost tells Bilbo all of it, all at once – but Thorin stops himself. Those are the kind of things that scare people off. The last thing Thorin wants to do is scare Bilbo off.

They reach their room. Bilbo puts the cactus on the bathroom counter, and puts the seals down on the bed nearest the door. Thorin sets the duffel bag on one of the beds and drops the shirt in the corner. He’s not touching it again until it’s time to wash it. Then he turns around. Bilbo is standing there, watching him. It makes him self-conscious, oddly enough. Thorin spent an entire Uber ride making out with Bilbo in the backseat like a sixteen-year-old, and Bilbo looking at him makes him self-conscious. There are things about himself that Thorin will never understand. Maybe he doesn’t have to understand them. Maybe he just has to trust them.

Bilbo sits down on the end of one of the beds and takes off his shoes. After a moment, Thorin copies him. Bilbo always puts his things down at the end of the bed closest to the door, but he and Thorin always sleep in the one closest to the window – because Thorin prefers it. Because it’s the bed Thorin picks, when he gets the choice, although Thorin would happily sleep anywhere Bilbo is. Thorin never told him that he prefers the bed furthest from the door. But Bilbo knows.

Thorin sets his shoes aside and stands up. Bilbo does the same. This time, Bilbo approaches Thorin. But he doesn’t kiss him, not yet. At least, Thorin hopes it’s not yet, instead of just not. Bilbo studies him again, and Thorin flushes beneath his gaze. “When was the last time you kissed someone, Thorin?”

Thorin swallows. This is probably not the answer Bilbo wants to hear, but he gives it anyway. He’s never been good at lying to people he loves. “Three years ago.”

“Well, you’re not out of practice,” Bilbo says without missing a beat. He doesn’t act surprised. Maybe he isn’t. “I haven’t kissed someone in a year and half.”

“You aren’t out of practice, either,” Thorin says. Bilbo’s eyebrows lift. “That was supposed to be a compliment.”

“It was,” Bilbo says. He rises up on his tiptoes and slides the beads off of Thorin’s braids one at a time. “You know, we really need to think of a better place to put these. They could roll off the nightstand.”

“I’d find them,” Thorin says. “I’m used to wearing them now.”

“I’ve noticed,” Bilbo says. He turns away – Thorin almost pulls him back, but restrains himself – and lifts the seal box off the bed.

Thorin realizes what Bilbo’s doing, and an upsurge of panic hits him. “No,” Thorin says. “Don’t put them there.”

“This is where I want to put them,” Bilbo says. He stands up, the box in one hand and the beads clenched in his other fist. His eyes settle on Thorin’s face. “Thorin, you look upset. What’s wrong?”

“Those – they’re from your family,” Thorin says. He doesn’t know how to explain.

“Yes,” Bilbo says patiently, “and I bought the beads for you. Why can’t they go in the same box?”

Because Bilbo cherishes those seals, because they’re from his parents, and Thorin desperately wants to be something, someone, that Bilbo cherishes. But he’s afraid of disappointing Bilbo. He’s afraid that Bilbo will lift Thorin’s heart in his hands and let it fall. He’s afraid that he’ll leave Bilbo, slow and agonizing, long enough for both of them to suffer unimaginably. Thror’s madness progressed so slowly that none of them noticed until it was too late. Thrain fled from his children and grandchildren so they wouldn’t have to watch him succumb. Thorin wants to be wiser than his grandfather, braver than his father. He has to tell Bilbo.

But what does he have to tell? Early-onset Alzheimer’s runs in Thorin’s family. Thorin’s grandfather was the only person in the family tree to make it past seventy, and everyone knows how that turned out. The disease is why Thorin’s father left. Thorin doesn’t know if he has the gene or not. He hasn’t gotten tested, because he’s a coward, because as bad as the uncertainty is, knowing that he has it would be worse. All Thorin can do for Bilbo if he tells him now is poison him with the same fear that haunts Thorin’s steps.

But Thorin has to tell Bilbo. And that means Thorin has to have something to tell.

“Go ahead,” Thorin says. His voice feels rough, because he’s made his decision and it’s just as terrifying as he always thought it would be. “I’m sorry.”

Bilbo settles the beads in the box, closes the lid, and straightens up again. He comes back to Thorin, rises on his tiptoes, puts his hands on Thorin’s shoulders, and kisses him with impossible gentleness. It does the same thing to Thorin that Bilbo’s gentleness always does, but softer. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” he says, pulling back ever so slightly. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

It’s a statement, not a question – that’s how well Bilbo knows him. Thorin nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak without telling Bilbo everything. Bilbo kisses him again, and this one starts out gentle and then shifts into something more than just gentle. It’s insistent. It doesn’t let up, not even as Thorin gives way beneath it. The backs of Thorin’s legs hit the bed. Thorin wraps his arms around Bilbo’s waist and falls back, pulling Bilbo down on top of him.

Thorin hears the air huff out of Bilbo’s lungs. He starts to sit up, but Thorin rolls them over before he can. Now Bilbo is on his back on the bed and Thorin is above him. Strands of Thorin’s hair are falling in Bilbo’s face. Bilbo tries to brush them back, then to tuck them behind Thorin’s ear, and when neither of those things work he just winds the strands up in his fingers and slides his hand around to the back of Thorin’s head. He doesn’t pull Thorin in; he looks at him, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“What?” Thorin asks.

“Nothing,” Bilbo says, but he’s still smiling. Then, after a moment: “You know, I think you’re the most attractive man I’ve ever met. I imagine people tell you that a lot. Or at least they try to. Good thing you’re not reading your Twitter mentions.”

Something about the way Bilbo says this makes Thorin smile, too. “Do they make you jealous?”

“No,” Bilbo says quickly, too quickly. “It’s typical. Most of them aren’t even inventive about it. It’s almost sad, really.”

Thorin feels his smile turning into a smirk. “You’re jealous.”

Bilbo huffs. “Yes. Fine. I’m jealous. Are you happy now?”

“I don’t know why you would be jealous,” Thorin says. Bilbo is still wearing a sweater – his lightest one, since they’re in Los Angeles – and a shirt. Thorin reaches down and starts tugging the hem of the shirt up. Bilbo catches his breath. “Do you really think I could be interested in someone other than you?”

“I don’t –” Bilbo cuts himself off. “I think you could stand to keep your options open, and – oh.”

Thorin’s finally managed to move Bilbo’s shirt enough to slide his hand beneath it. It’s incredible how quickly Bilbo goes from eloquent but breathless to a flushing, gasping mess. And by incredible, Thorin means unbelievably hot. “Do you really want to talk about our social media accounts right now?”

“Well – ah – no,” Bilbo stammers. His fingers move restlessly in Thorin’s hair, and that’s its own kind of distracting, but Thorin is enjoying seeing Bilbo flustered too much to give into it. “I – oh – I suppose not.”

Thorin kisses him again. He slides his hands beneath the shirt, around to the small of Bilbo’s back, and sits up, bringing Bilbo with him. He draws back long enough to say something, although it’s an effort. “Take this off.”

“My sweater?” Bilbo asks. “Or my shirt?”

“Your sweater,” Thorin says. His voice sounds rough again, for an entirely different reason. Thorin likes this reason a lot better. “I’ll handle the shirt.”

Bilbo looks at him, openmouthed, and Thorin nearly gives up on his objective to kiss Bilbo again. He makes himself wait. Bilbo pulls the sweater over his head and tosses it aside. Thorin doesn’t see where it lands – he’s too busy undoing the buttons on Bilbo’s shirt as fast as he can, faster than thought. And then they’re all undone and he’s sliding the shirt from Bilbo’s shoulders and kissing his neck, his collarbones. Bilbo’s hands clutch at Thorin’s back, keeping him close, and his breathing shifts and rises and falls. Thorin imagines he can feel Bilbo’s heart beating.

“You,” Bilbo gasps, “are wearing too many clothes.”

“Maybe,” Thorin allows. He kisses Bilbo’s neck open-mouthed and Bilbo shudders. “What are you going to do about it?”

It’s a game Thorin’s playing here, but either way it goes, he wins. Bilbo shivers and gasps and sighs under Thorin’s mouth for another minute before he brings his hands around to Thorin’s shoulders and shoves him back. He unbuttons Thorin’s shirt in sudden, sharp movements. “You do not get to make me feel this way right now,” he says, and he sounds surprised, exasperated – and pleased. “This was my idea.”

“It was my idea,” Thorin corrects.

Bilbo pulls the last few buttons apart. “Oh, shut up.”

He kisses Thorin. He hasn’t even gotten Thorin’s shirt all the way off and his hands are already on Thorin’s chest, on his back. His fingers outline Thorin’s shoulder blades, slip down Thorin’s spine. Thorin tries to hold himself together. It’s nearly impossible. Bilbo pushes Thorin backwards, but Thorin doesn’t want to lie down yet. Instead he moves around Bilbo, puts his back against the headboard – and then Bilbo climbs into his lap and kisses him again.

Thorin finally gets his hands into Bilbo’s hair. He’s surprised by how soft it is, surprised that he managed to forget about it among Bilbo’s many charms. Bilbo keeps kissing him, and all the while his hands are moving over Thorin’s skin, feather-light. Thorin closes his eyes and gives himself up to Bilbo, and all the while he does the one thing that he never does – he tries to make himself forget. He tries to make himself forget every moment that isn’t this one, every person except Bilbo, every thought that takes him away. This is all he wants to think of. This is all he wants to remember.

* * *

Bilbo’s alarm is going off. Fili or Kili must have gotten to the reminder sounds as well – it sounds like a whole herd of geese honking. Thorin blinks. It doesn’t feel like he’s gotten enough sleep. Or any sleep at all, really. Bilbo seems to feel similarly. “Shut up,” he mutters sleepily. One hand emerges from beneath the covers to flail for the phone.

“Seven am,” Thorin says, “is too early in the morning for geese.”

“That may be the strangest sentence I’ve ever heard,” Bilbo says. His voice is already sharpening, growing clearer. He grabs the phone and the honking finally stops. “But you’re correct. Still, we have to be on the bus, ready to leave, in an hour.”

“Five more minutes,” Thorin says. He kisses Bilbo – he likes being able to do that, now.

“We should get up,” Bilbo says, but he sounds less enthusiastic about it than before. Thorin kisses him again, and Bilbo relents. “All right. Five more minutes. But only if we’re actually going to rest.”

What follows is five minutes of slow, sleepy kissing. Thorin plays with Bilbo’s hair and strokes his jaw. There’s less heat in it than there was last night, but it’s not gone entirely – far from it. By the time the geese start honking again, Thorin’s heart rate has picked up to a nearly unsustainable degree, and when Bilbo pulls away, it seems like an effort to do so. “You have to stop doing that,” he says. “We’re on a schedule.”

“Doing what?” Thorin says.

“You know,” Bilbo says. “Come on. We have to pack up.”

Changing out of his sweatpants and putting on street clothes has never bothered Thorin more than it does at this moment. He wads up the shirt from last night and mummifies it in coffee filters before he stuffs it into his duffel bag. They’ll have to do laundry tonight when they stop. Then Thorin remembers that their stopping point tonight is Dis’s house. They’ll be staying there for the next two nights. She won’t begrudge them the laundry machine. Whether or not she’ll want Thorin and Bilbo sharing a bed under her roof remains to be seen. Thorin is surprised by how much the thought frustrates him, how much he’s gotten used to Bilbo’s presence. Maybe that’s what happens when you love someone like this. You can’t remember the way things were without them.

“Thorin,” Bilbo says. He has an odd look on his face – ashamed of himself, but also like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “The stage makeup is in your duffel bag, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Thorin says. He has to hold onto it – otherwise Kili and Fili will steal it and do Durin knows what to the others while they’re asleep. “Why?”

“You, uh, you have some things you need to cover up.”

A premonition comes over Thorin. He heads to the bathroom and sure enough, he spots a chain of marks encircling his throat. They look almost like bruises. But they aren’t. Thorin wheels on Bilbo. “You did this.”

“I don’t recall you complaining,” Bilbo says.

No, whatever Thorin was doing was the polar opposite of complaining. He leaves the bathroom, goes digging around in his duffel bag, and returns with the stage makeup. There’s quite a bit to cover up. “Do you feel that this is at all excessive?”

“You didn’t think so,” Bilbo says. Thorin can see Bilbo’s reflection next to his in the bathroom mirror. There’s a mischievous smirk on his face. “In fact, I seem to recall you begging me to keep doing it.”

Thorin remembers doing that. Last-night Thorin was clearly out to undermine his arguments, and this-morning Thorin is not really in a position to complain. He sighs and concedes the point. “Will you help me with this? I can’t get the blending right.”

Bilbo helps Thorin, but Bilbo also kisses him, and the resulting delay means that they make it onto the bus with four and a half minutes to spare. Thorin thinks the makeup is good enough to escape detection, but he keeps his hair pulled forward in spite of it as he greets the rest of the band and takes his seat. Bofur guides the bus into traffic – Thorin’s just glad they’re coming out of Los Angeles and not into it at this hour – and they’re on their way to Lake Tahoe and Dis.

Thorin texts her. _We’re underway. See you in about eight hours_.

_Yes! I’m looking forward to seeing you_. Dis’s reply comes back about thirty seconds later. She’s probably eating breakfast, doing the New York Times crossword in pen. _We’re doing the combined birthday party tonight, but tomorrow night is your show. Do you think you could stay longer than two days_?

_Maybe_, Thorin responds. It’ll mean a longer drive later on, but it’s been six months since he saw his sister. When he lived in Denver, he went down for a visit every other week. _Do you have a list of chores for us to do? Dwalin already asked. Twice_.

_Tell Dwalin I love him_.

_I can’t tell him that, he’ll explode_. Thorin shakes his head. Dwalin has an enormous soft spot for Dis, the true nature of which Thorin has never quite been able to discern. He tries not to think about it. _So, list_?

_I’ve got one_, Dis says. _You know you don’t need to do that_.

_We know_, Thorin says. _You know you don’t have to let us stay in your house. We can afford hotel rooms now_.

_You are staying in my house because you’re family and that’s where you belong_. _I’ve set up the usual sleeping arrangements_, Dis says. _I changed the sheets in your room and put extra pillows on your bed_.

That’s oddly specific. _Why extra pillows_?

_Because you, T, are a known pillow hog_, Dis says, _and lately your sleeping arrangements have included someone else. I don’t want him getting a crick in his neck_.

Thorin drags his hand down his face. Unfortunately, he uses the cactus hand to do it, and he ends up wincing and swearing under his breath. In the seat next to him, Bilbo looks up, concerned. Thorin nods at him to indicate that he’s okay, then tries to figure out how to respond to his sister. _Who told you that_?

_Kili, Nori, Gloin_, Dis says. _Bofur, Dwalin, Balin_.

_So half the band_.

_Oh, and Gandalf_, Dis adds. _Is it true_?

Thorin experiences a momentary urge to lie, as though admitting to it in writing will make it evaporate like it was never there at all. Then he remembers that he loves Bilbo, that he’s still amazed that Bilbo wants him in any way at all, that he’s happy and he wants his sister to know. _It’s true_.

_Then I’m looking forward to meeting him_, Dis says. Thorin imagines her smiling. _Keep me updated on your progress_.

Thorin thinks hard about whether this next thing is true before he sends it. _I’m looking forward to introducing you_.

Dis sends a smiley face, and Thorin puts his phone away. Bilbo’s just taken his out. “Lindir’s article is up,” he says, and Thorin feels nerves rush through him. Bilbo raises his voice. “Everyone! The Rolling Stone piece is up!”

It’s too loud on the bus for eight-thirty in the morning. Finally, Dwalin just bellows at everyone to “Shut your goddamn faces” before yielding the floor. “All yours, Bilbo.”

Bilbo blinks. “For what?”

“You’re going to read it aloud, aren’t you?” Dwalin asks. Thorin nearly bursts out laughing. Storytime. Dwalin is looking for storytime.

“I, er, I suppose I could,” Bilbo says. He stands up in his seat and pulls up the article on his phone. He clears his throat. “Profile of The Lonely Mountains, written by Lindir Tirenion. The Lonely Mountains’ first harmonica player – yes, you read that right – describes the band as a family. A thirteen-man band, which I believe is the largest I’ve ever profiled, they are a friendly lot, with one notable exception. But all of them, even indomitably aloof lead singer Thorin Oakenshield, describe their loyalty as to their music first. And it shows. Their set last night at Echo in Los Angeles was a master class in restraint and power, led by Oakenshield, who seems to truly come alive onstage.”

Surprise, and pride, wipe out Thorin’s nerves. He can’t help but smile. Bilbo keeps talking. “It’s as impossible to pick a standout performer as it is to choose a standout song. Woodwinds player Bofur describes Oakenshield’s lyrics as having the ability to make people feel things that they weren’t expecting, and told me that love song Alive Again makes him tear up. Dwalin, the band’s imposing bass player, stated that show-closer and undeniable crowd-pleaser Suckerpunch is his favorite. Personally, I favor Oakenshield’s sparsely arranged solo Trouble, backed only by upright bass and drums – but all three deserve a listen.”

Thorin gets his face under control and looks up over the back of the seats. The bandmembers and Gandalf are grinning, even Dwalin, who makes a point of never smiling if he can help it. Even Bilbo is smiling, and his smile grows bigger with every sentence. “The Lonely Mountains defy genre classification. Oin, who plays the musical saw – you read that right as well – describes the band as “not quite country, not quite folk, not quite rock”. That may be true, but if The Lonely Mountains are not quite on their way to superstardom, they will be soon. In my humble opinion, it’s best to get in on the ground floor of this type of thing. In Oakenshield’s own words: Give us a listen, if you feel like it. We’ll be out here playing whether you do or not.”

Bilbo pauses. “The Lonely Mountains’ LP Fight Choreography is available for download on Spotify, as well as in CD form at www.thelonelymountains.com.”

There’s silence on the bus for a moment. Then Kili speaks. “Wow, he must have really liked us!”

“We were really good,” Thorin says. He can barely hide his smile “Some of us in the interview, all of us in the show.”

“Bedroom eyes girl really came through,” Ori marvels.

Thorin wishes everyone would let that comment die. Well, maybe not everyone. Bilbo clears his throat. “I’m not going to lie to you, this is about as glowing a review as Rolling Stone ever gives. Thorin is right. You knocked it out of the park.”

“We did, didn’t we?” Fili says. “I can’t wait to tell Mom!”

The band dissolves into excited discussion over their various portrayals in the article, and Bilbo sinks back into his seat. Thorin looks at him. The morning light is streaming in through the bus windows and gilding Bilbo’s hair. He’s beautiful. “I have no idea how you made this happen,” Thorin says. “But thank you.”

“I just made the connection. You made it happen,” Bilbo says. “You’re on your way, Thorin.”

“We are,” Thorin corrects without thinking. The smile on Bilbo’s face makes him glad that he didn’t. There’s no one in their row, and their heads are below the tops of the seats. Thorin leans in, quickly, and kisses Bilbo. Bilbo looks like he’s been dealt a very pleasant shock, which is how Thorin feels every time he looks at Bilbo, let alone touches him.

Bilbo looks at Thorin from under his eyelashes. “All right,” he says. “We.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and a special thank-you to whiskeredbell, Arrowsboi, JuniAsat, Yoanna, LostGryphin, arghsigh, and zephyr2113 for the comments. Your feedback always makes my evening.


	17. Chapter 17

They round one more bend in the road, and Bilbo’s jaw drops. “Is that your sister’s house?”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Thorin says, and Bilbo nods. For some reason, it makes Thorin happy that Bilbo likes the house, too. Dis’s house sits on a bluff, set back from the drop-off. Sloping lawns lead down to the edge, and there’s a trail down the bluff that leads to the water’s edge. “I’ve spent almost as much time here as in Denver.”

“What does your sister do for work, again?” Bilbo asks, still staring. Then he gives his head a little shake. “Sorry. That was inappropriate.”

“It’s fine,” Kili says, popping up in the row of seats behind Thorin and Bilbo. “The house has been in Dad’s family for a while. We aren’t rich or anything. Definitely not like the family used to be.”

Five years before his death, Thror’s net worth was somewhere in the range of seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Thorin and Dis still went to public school, and Dis went to a private college only because she got an enormous scholarship. Thrain didn’t hold with being ostentatious about wealth. He believed in using what you need, and being circumspect with the rest. That’s how Thorin and Dis turned out – although Thorin can’t remember the last time he had money to spend on anything at all.

“Yeah,” Fili adds, popping up as well, “Mom wouldn’t let great-grandpa give us a lot of expensive things. Except the tree house.”

“The tree house,” Kili says dreamily. “Bilbo, when we get there, you’ve got to see the tree house. It’s awesome. Thorin was so jealous when we got it.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Thorin says. Thorin was sixteen when they got it. Too old for tree houses, probably, but not too old to be excited about being one of the few people Kili and Fili would let in it. He turns to Bilbo. “Kili and Fili must like you. They don’t let just anyone into the tree house.”

“We do like you, Bilbo!” Fili says. “You’re officially invited!”

“No fair,” Bofur calls from the driver’s seat. Thorin wishes he’d concentrate on the road – the turn into Dis’s driveway is tricky, and Thorin doesn’t want to start the visit by demolishing part of his sister’s house. “How come I’m not invited to the tree house?”

“You’re on thin ice, Bofur,” Kili warns. “The last time you were in there you almost fell out the window. Tree house privileges are reserved for people who can manage not to kill themselves while interacting with the tree house.”

“That is shockingly responsible of you,” Bilbo says. Kili nods and smiles, pleased with himself. Bilbo takes a few quick, even breaths, and Thorin realizes that he’s nervous. Very nervous. “Right, then. Is there anything I should know before I meet your mom – or your sister?”

This last is directed at Thorin, but Kili answers. “We’ve told her all about you,” he says, and Bilbo blanches. “Like how you’re the most awesome agent in the history of ever, and you can chug beer like a master, and how you can do all this crazy yoga stuff. She’s excited to meet you.”

“Oh. Well, er, that’s wonderful,” Bilbo says. Now he looks like he’s going to faint.

“Put your head between your knees,” Thorin advises, but he’s still shocked when Bilbo does it. He puts his hand on Bilbo’s shoulder and gives his nephews a look. “Try not to overwhelm your mother with the nonsense you’ve gotten up to since the last time she saw you – if for no other reason than that I’m going to be on the hook for all of it.”

“We’re adults,” Fili says. “We can take care of ourselves.”

Thorin decides not to get into all the reasons why this claim is highly suspect. “Yes, and that’s not going to stop her from blaming me. Go easy.”

Bilbo is hyperventilating in the seat next to him. The bus comes to a stop, and Kili and Fili jump up, heading for the doors before Bofur can open them. Thorin stays next to Bilbo. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes,” Bilbo says, but Thorin doesn’t believe him. Bilbo is not a very good liar. Thorin just watches him, eyebrows raised the slightest bit, and finally Bilbo sits up and says, “The band is your family. I’ve met most of your family.”

“You’ve been adopted by most of my family,” Thorin points out.

Bilbo smiles a little. His face still looks grey. “Yes,” he says, “and meeting your sister is the equivalent of meeting someone else’s parents. It’s a big deal.”

Thorin tries not to look like he’s just been hit over the head. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Bilbo says slowly, “when I met Theo’s parents, I practiced what I was going to say to them for a week. I got a haircut. I dry-cleaned all of my shirts even though I can really only wear one at a time.”

This is the most Bilbo thing Thorin has ever heard, and that makes him smile – even if he’s displeased about being reminded of Theo’s existence. “I brought them flowers,” Bilbo continues, “and a fruit basket. I probably went overboard. But I wanted to impress them. I wanted them to like me.”

“I’m sure they did,” Thorin says. He has a hard time seeing how anyone wouldn’t.

“They came to the funeral even though he didn’t,” Bilbo says. “They liked me.”

Thorin is reminded again of how much he hates Theo. “In any case,” Bilbo says, “that’s how I like to meet people’s parents. And I’m going to meet your sister when I haven’t practiced anything at all. I haven’t gotten a haircut in months, and I don’t have any flowers or food to give her. The only thing I have is a cactus that I’m offloading onto her.”

“She loves the cactus,” Thorin says. Kili and Fili have been sending her pictures of it, with more and more ridiculous captions every time.

“The cactus isn’t the point,” Bilbo says. “Well, it’s sort of the point. But I want to impress her. I want her to like me.”

Thorin raises his eyebrows, because it seems like Bilbo’s going to say more. Bilbo makes an exasperated sound. “Are you going to make me spell it out? I want her to like me because I like you, and if she doesn’t like me, you’ll probably like me less, too.”

“Don’t worry,” Thorin says. He wishes he could kiss Bilbo right now, but the bandmembers are filing off the bus and Thorin doesn’t want them to know how things have changed. Not yet, anyway. He wants to keep it to himself a little while longer. “She’s going to love you.”

“How do you know that?”

_Because I love you_. “I know,” Thorin says. He stands up. The rest of the band is milling about on the lawn, and Thorin knows Dis will be running out to meet them at any minute. “Grab Myrtle and let’s go.”

Thorin makes his way to the front of the group, applying elbows as needed, with Bilbo following him. The front door of the house opens, and Kili and Fili, who are standing near the front as well, undergo some last-minute appearance modifications. Fili starts frantically picking dryer lint off his shirt, while Kili tries to make it look like he’s combed his hair any time in the last three days.

“Oh, give it up,” Dis says. She’s standing on the front porch, a smile breaking across her face. “I gave birth to you two. I know what you look like.”

“Mom!” Kili bolts up the front path and runs into Dis as she’s trying to come down the steps. Luckily, she’s prepared for it – she spins Kili around as she’s hugging him, so that he winds up on the steps and she’s on solid ground. “We missed you!”

“We?” Dis asks. She detaches herself ever so slightly from her youngest son and starts down the path towards them. Kili hops off the steps and follows her. “You and Fili?”

“I missed you too, Mom,” Fili says. He’s grinning. “But I think Kili meant the whole band.”

“Is that so?” Dis pauses in front of them, hands on her hips. Her expression is stern and evaluative, and if Thorin didn’t know exactly how this was going to go, he’d be nervous. Then his sister grins wickedly. “Thank Durin you’re back. It’s been far too quiet around here.”

“It has,” Dis’s husband Edden calls from the porch. He’s emerged after Dis, more slowly, but he’s smiling, too. “The neighbors haven’t called the cops in months.”

“Except for the raccoon,” Dis says.

“Yes, the raccoon.” Edden starts down the steps, and Fili runs at him, careful of his cane. “You know the one, Fili. It lived in the tree house for a while.”

Fili scowls. “It did not get an invitation, for the record.”

Thorin is conscious of Bilbo standing nervously in his shadow, holding the cactus protectively and bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, as Dis moves through the group, greeting every member of the band in turn. Everyone gets a hug, except for Ori, who gets his hair ruffled, and Dwalin, who gets a kiss on the cheek and turns bright red. Dis turns away from him with a little smirk on her face, and her eyes find Thorin’s.

“Little brother,” she says, and the smirk becomes a smile. “Come here.”

Thorin walks into his sister’s embrace. He was taller than Dis by his thirteenth birthday, but he’s always felt safe around her, trusted and cared for and loved. Their mother died when Thorin was four; Thorin never really knew her. For most of his childhood, Dis was his sister and his mother and his best friend. When Thorin thinks of where he lives, it’s a tossup between the Vail house where he grew up and wherever his sister is.

It’s just the two of them, now – they’re what’s left of the family-that-was. Thorin and Dis protect each other’s backs, and keep each other’s secrets, and together they keep the two family secrets hidden. But that’s not why Thorin’s here, even though something twinges in the back of his mind, a decision he made less than twenty-four hours ago. Thorin hugs Dis until he’s sure he won’t say everything here and now, and then he steps back.

Dis looks him up and down. “You look good,” she says. “I like the beads. And the jacket. Who dressed you up?”

Thorin steps aside, revealing Bilbo. Bilbo looks like he’s been caught doing something he’s not supposed to do. Thorin nods at him. “He did,” Thorin says. He reaches out, catches Bilbo by the elbow, and tugs him forward. “Dis, this is our new agent.”

“Not quite new,” Bilbo says. He rubs the back of his neck with the hand that isn’t holding the cactus, and squares his shoulders. “Bilbo Baggins. At your service.”

Dis is smiling at him. It’s the same sunny smile that Kili so often shows; Thorin realizes where he got it from. “I’d hug you,” she says, “but you’re holding a cactus. Is that Myrtle?”

“Oh. Yes,” Bilbo says. He holds out the cactus for inspection. “Thanks to Fili and Kili, she is quite recovered from her time as a hostage.”

“Thorin’s the one who rescued it,” Kili pipes up. He sounds innocent enough about it – then he smirks and Thorin reminds himself that as long as they’re at Dis’s house, handling Kili is Dis’s problem. “Bilbo’s cousin is evil. She put googly eyes on it. Googly eyes! What kind of psychopath does that?”

“Precision of language, Kili,” Edden says, and Kili makes a face. “I doubt she’s a psychopath.”

“I don’t know,” Dis muses, studying the cactus, “unwarranted houseplant torture might qualify.”

She looks up from Myrtle to Bilbo. “How long have you been traveling with the band?”

“Around two months,” Bilbo says. “It’s been, er –”

He trails off. Then he squares his shoulders again, and says, “It’s been wonderful. Never a dull moment, with these fourteen. They’re a lot to handle, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Dis pats Bilbo on the shoulder. Bilbo tries not to jump, and only manages it partway. “Well, Master Baggins, it sounds like you’re going to fit right in around here,” she says, and a startled smile crosses Bilbo’s face.

Edden slings an arm around Bilbo’s shoulders from the other side. “Welcome to the circus,” he says good-naturedly. “Those of us who weren’t born into it have to stick together.”

Bilbo nods. He’s smiling, but more than that, he looks relieved. Thorin doesn’t know why Bilbo was worried. Dis has never given a hard time to one of Thorin’s dates at their first meeting, although when she discovered that one of Thorin’s exes had been cheating on him, she psychologically destroyed the man by phone while Thorin sat morosely on the couch in her living room. Dis likes Bilbo, and so does Edden – Edden, who wasn’t born into the family, but married into it. Thorin nearly double-takes, but manages to stop himself. Whatever Kili and Gandalf and the rest of the band have been up to, Dis and Edden are in on it.

Dis claps her hands, and everyone quiets down. “All right,” she says. “Dinner is in an hour and a half. Bring your things in, and then you’re banished from the house until dinner time.”

“All of us?” Kili asks. He doesn’t look upset at the prospect.

“Gandalf, Balin, Bombur, and Thorin – you’re staying in the house,” Dis says. “The rest of you are welcome to amuse yourselves as you see fit.”

Dwalin clears his throat. His face is still red. “Do you have a list of things for us to do?”

“I do, as a matter of fact.” Dis produces a list from her back pocket and hands it to Thorin. Thorin holds onto it for exactly three seconds before Dwalin snatches it from his hands. “Once again, you don’t have to do anything. You’re welcome to fight Fili and Kili over the treehouse until it’s time for dinner.”

“We get Bilbo,” Kili says immediately. Then, after a moment’s reflection, “and Bofur. We’ll take on the rest of you together!”

“No,” Dwalin says, and the tone in his voice is enough to stop Kili in his tracks. Thorin’s impressed against his will – he can’t always manage that himself. “We’re all going to help, and whoever does the most bitching about it gets the outdoor vacuum.”

Silence. “I call the pressure washer!” Gloin announces.

“Hey, I want the pressure washer! No fair!”

Half the band departs for the garden shed, shoving and arguing. The other half hesitates, then follows. Bilbo hands Dis the cactus, but then he’s taken along as well, by Bofur, who seems excited about showing Bilbo the ropes. “Don’t worry. I’m going to teach you how to use the chain saw.”

“Chain saw?” Bilbo sputters as they disappear around the corner.

Thorin nearly goes after him. Then he looks at Dis, finds his sister watching him, and stays put. It’s an effort. Dis sighs. “I tell them to bring their stuff in first every time.”

“And they never listen,” Edden adds. “You all might as well bring your stuff inside – you know where you’re staying.”

“You’ve got five minutes,” Dis says. “Then you’re all needed in the kitchen.”

Thorin extracts his belongings from under the bus – then, on second thought, he takes Bilbo’s, too. They’re sleeping in the same room. If Dis notices that Thorin’s got more bags than usual, she doesn’t comment on it. Or maybe she’s just lying in wait, and she’s going to spring all of it at once on Thorin as soon as she can corner him away from the others. Dis was already perceptive. Getting a doctorate in clinical psychology only made it more apparent. In any case, Thorin makes it up to his room without incident.

The fourth floor of the house belongs to Kili and Fili, and it’s where most of the band will be staying. The remaining guest bedrooms get assigned to whoever’s willing to fight about them, but Thorin has his own room. It’s in the northwest corner of the house, on the third floor. It has a nice view across the lake, and a double bed – Thorin protested this when they were first setting it up, but Dis pointed out that Thorin’s a restless sleeper with a penchant for rolling off of smaller beds in the middle of the night and scaring everyone else in the house. So there’s a double bed, its sheets covered by an ancient quilt Thorin’s grandmother made. He never met her.

Thorin sets the bags down at the end of the bed and looks around the room. He doesn’t keep a lot of things here. He doesn’t own a lot of things. There’s a desk in the corner, with a few picture frames scattered across it. One catches Thorin’s eye, and he picks it up, blowing dust off the glass to peer at the image inside.

It’s a picture of Thorin’s high school graduation, taken by Edden. Kili is nine in this photo, Fili is ten, and neither of them are really capable of holding still long enough for the picture to be taken. That’s probably why Thrain and Dis are restraining one each. They stand on either side of Thorin, grinning. Thror stands behind Thorin, his hand resting on Thorin’s shoulder. Eighteen-year-old Thorin doesn’t look happy. He looks uneasy, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, like he’s expecting someone to come take his diploma – he seems to be clutching it unnecessarily hard – and tell him he has to do it all over again.

“Hey.”

Thorin doesn’t jump. He’s used to Dis sneaking up on him – she’s been doing it since he could walk. “Sorry. I’m on my way down.”

“It’s okay,” Dis says. Thorin turns around to look at her and finds her leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, studying him. “What have you got there?”

Thorin shows her, and a smile comes to her face. “Dad was so proud of you,” she says.

“He was only proud of me because I managed to make it to eighteen without becoming a father,” Thorin says, and Dis snorts. “You graduated high school, too – and your grades were better.”

“Go easy on yourself,” Dis tells him. Thorin sets the photo back down on the desk and faces her. There’s something in her face that makes him worry. “Success looks good on you, Thorin.”

Thorin wonders what she’s referring to. The beads? The jacket? “Thanks.”

“And Bilbo,” Dis says, and there it is, “he seems very polite. And by all accounts he’s good at his job.”

Polite. Good at his job. There are a thousand ways Thorin could describe Bilbo, and all of them require more than five words. Bilbo is brilliant, inventive, ferocious when he needs to be, gentle when he doesn’t. He’s picky about the strangest things, and he named his cactus after another type of plant, and he thinks nothing of dragging the entire band on a hike through bear country to associate them with the most powerful imagery he can find. In fact, the more Thorin tries to describe him, the more he realizes that Bilbo, at least how Thorin sees him, is beyond description. Thorin settles for agreeing with his sister. “He is.”

“You’re in love with him,” Dis says after a moment, and while Thorin is opening and closing his mouth and grasping for something to say, she continues, “Does he know?”

“I – I haven’t told him,” Thorin says. He doesn’t know what to say except the truth. “We’ve known each other for two months.”

It sounds ridiculous when Thorin puts it like that. Laughable. Luckily he manages to stop himself before he informs Dis that he kissed Bilbo for the first time just last night. But Dis isn’t laughing at him. “People in our family fall fast,” she says. “Sometimes it takes the other people in the equation a little longer to catch up.”

“You think he’s going to catch up?” Thorin asks. He might as well be fifteen again, asking his older sister how to tell if a boy – or a girl – likes him.

“I’m not a matchmaker,” Dis says, “and I don’t know him hardly at all. But he looks at you like he trusts you. That’s a pretty good place to start. Love should always start with trust.”

The smile begins to fade from her face, and Thorin knows what’s coming, because it’s what comes up any time he and his sister are alone in the same room. The weight of the decision he made last night hits his shoulders with the force of the sky falling. But Thorin can’t say it aloud, because telling his sister will make it real. Telling her will mean he has to do it. “Just say it,” he says miserably.

“Say what?” Dis asks.

“That I can’t do this to him,” Thorin says. “That I shouldn’t let him trust me, let alone love me, even if he wanted to – because I’m going to lose my mind and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

“That’s what you’re saying,” Dis says mildly. “Not me.”

Sometimes Thorin wonders why he tries to sneak anything past his sister. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Thorin asks. “It would be wrong.”

“Edden didn’t know when he married me,” Dis says.

“That’s because you didn’t know, either,” Thorin says. “You wouldn’t have lied to him about it.”

“You’re not lying about it,” Dis says. “You aren’t lying by not telling him something you don’t know.”

Thorin swallows. He can’t look at his sister when he says it. He forces the words out. “Then I need to know.”

Dis sucks in a breath. “Thorin, that’s a big decision to make.”

“I’ve been putting it off for three years,” Thorin says. He hears his voice waver and digs his fingernails into the palm of his hand. “I’m torturing myself, and if I’m going to tell him – which I have to – I need to be able to tell him the truth. Before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” Dis asks.

Thorin takes a deep breath and lets his shoulders slump. “For him to leave.”

“As I see it, you have four potential outcomes here,” Dis says. Thorin crosses his arms over his chest. “Option one – your test is positive, you tell him, and he leaves.”

“Excellent,” Thorin says. “I suppose I should dig a hole and go live in it.”

“Oh, be quiet. Option two, your test is negative, you tell him, and he leaves.”

If it’s possible, that option is worse than the first one. Dis keeps going before Thorin can interrupt her. “Options three and four, he stays no matter what your test result is.” She sighs. “There’s no way for you to predict what’s going to happen, Thorin. Some part of it is always going to be out of your hands.”

Thorin asks her a question, a question that reminds him very much of his youngest nephew. “Do you think I’m being an idiot?”

“I think you’re being human,” Dis says. She smiles. “Humans are idiots sometimes. But you’re my brother, and you love someone, and you’ve made your decision. I’m behind you no matter what.”

Thorin doesn’t know what to say to her. Dis seems to understand that he’s reached the end of his capability to talk about this for now. She beckons him from the doorway. “Come on. We’ve got a birthday party for seven people to put on.”

Gloin, Dori, Bifur, Bofur, Oin, and Fili. All of them have had birthdays since the last time they were at Dis’s house. “Who’s the seventh?”

“Bilbo,” Dis says cheerfully, to Thorin’s horror. “You didn’t think we’d forget about him, did you?”

* * *

“Oh, cheer up, Thorin,” Gandalf calls from the kitchen table. “I’m the one who told Dis.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Thorin asks. He can’t look at Gandalf right now – partly because he’s frustrated with him, and partly because the enormous birthday cake in front of him is demanding all his concentration. “I didn’t know when his birthday was until today.”

“It was before you met him. How were you supposed to know?” Balin asks practically. “Does he even know yours?”

He probably does. Bilbo knows everything. Thorin scowls and pipes a yellow rose onto the edge of the cake. Yellow roses are Fili’s favorite frosting flower – probably because they involve more frosting than any of the other designs. Thorin’s already done four of them. “I didn’t even get him a present.”

“You’re overthinking this,” Edden says. He’s sitting with Balin and Gandalf at the kitchen table, wrapping and labeling a veritable mountain of presents. “Besides, we took care of it.”

Thorin straightens up. “What did you get him?”

“A few things,” Gandalf says, but he refuses to provide any answer beyond that. Thorin decides it would be too embarrassing to ask Gandalf to pretend that one of the gifts is from him. “How is the cake going?”

Bombur, who’s stirring something on the stove, peers around Thorin at the cake. He gives Gandalf a thumbs-up, and Gandalf smiles. “You are a man of many talents, Thorin Oakenshield,” he says, “but I do believe that cake-decorating is one of your stranger gifts. How did you come by it?”

Thorin doesn’t answer. He’s decided he’s not talking to Gandalf for a while. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop Dis from sharing on his behalf. “He dated a pastry chef in college,” she tells Gandalf. “Learned to impress him.”

“Ah,” Gandalf says. Thorin doesn’t even have to look at him to know that he’s smirking. “I see.”

Thorin has seven empty piping bags in front of him, each of which originally contained a different color of frosting. Whenever they do the combined birthday parties – and usually, they do them more frequently than this – the cake is Thorin’s job. He’s almost finished. He’s already done the writing on the top; ‘happy birthday’ in enormous letters, followed by everyone’s names. Thorin put Bilbo’s last in the list, and added a flourish beneath it, just because he could. He’s also been adding oak leaves and acorns into the frosting flowers that cover the edges and sides of the cake. The cake is, after all, his job. He can decorate it however he wants.

“How are they doing outside?” Edden asks. Thorin remembers Bofur’s comment about a chain saw and nearly puts a hole in the cake with a piping tip. “I haven’t heard much screaming.”

“They know it’s birthday night,” Balin says. “They’re not going to do anything to jeopardize cake and presents. And speaking of presents, we’re all finished here. Shall I go get them, Dis?”

Dis stands in the middle of the kitchen, hands on her hips. She studies what Bombur’s working on, checks the timer on the oven, and peers down at Thorin’s handiwork on the cake. “It looks good. T, is the cake done?”

Thorin has enough frosting left for a few more yellow roses, and probably fifteen or sixteen more acorns, but he’s rapidly running out of places to put them. He wrings out a cramp in his hand and stands up. “It’s done,” he says. “What do you think?”

“You’ve outdone yourself,” Edden says, peering at it from the kitchen table. “Hasn’t he?”

“It’s all right,” Dis says. Her voice is laden with doubt, but her mouth is curved into a smirk. “Balin, go get the others.”

Thorin has just settled the cake in the refrigerator and shut the door when the unmistakable, ear-shattering sound of an air horn rings through the house. It’s a good thing he already put the cake down. “Have you ever thought about getting a dinner bell?” he asks his sister. “Something that makes a smaller sound?”

“Oh, but that wouldn’t be half as fun,” Dis says. Sometimes, Thorin forgets where Kili and Fili got their mischievousness from – then he comes back to his sister’s house and remembers. “Brace yourselves, everyone. The party’s about to start.”

The obligatory fighting over the food occurs, although in several years of combined birthday parties, Thorin’s never seen the band finish all the food that Dis and Bombur prepare. They’re all crammed into the dining room, and everyone is laughing and arguing and shoveling massive amounts of food into their mouths. Thorin got in early, filled his plate, and got back out as fast as possible. He knows how these things go.

“Why are your hands pink?” Bilbo asks from next to Thorin. He didn’t have to wrestle for his food – the rest of the band let him in, then out again. He doesn’t seem worse for wear over his ordeal in the yard, whatever it was.

Thorin sees a few leaves in Bilbo’s hair and considers dropping his plate to kiss him. “No reason.”

“They’re yellow, too,” Bilbo observes. “And green and purple and orange – were you coloring or something?”

“Sort of,” Thorin says. “Did Bofur teach you how to use the chain saw?”

“He did,” Bilbo says. He pauses long enough to fit a frankly ridiculous amount of food into his mouth, chew, and swallow before speaking again. “Kili took me up to the tree house, too. I would have killed somebody for a tree house like that when I was a kid.”

“When I said I wasn’t jealous about it, I lied,” Thorin says, and he sees Bilbo’s mouth tug left into a lopsided smile. At this point, Thorin is calculating how many bandmembers are unaware of what’s going on, and how many would actually react to it if Thorin just kissed Bilbo, right here and now. “As for the colors on my hands – I was decorating the cake.”

Bilbo nearly drops his plate. “You – decorated the cake?”

“Yes,” Thorin says. He’s a little wounded by Bilbo’s incredulousness. “I did a good job, I think. Nobody’s complained before.”

“Of course. Of course you can decorate cakes,” Bilbo mutters. “It’s not enough that you’re the lead singer in one of the best bands I’ve ever heard, or that you’re an incredible lyricist and composer, or that you’re the most stupidly attractive man I’ve ever met. You have to decorate cakes on top of it.”

The first two compliments knock Thorin’s legs out from under him – the third is the equivalent of being pushed over by a gentle breeze. He would like to say something intelligent in response, but nothing’s forthcoming. “I don’t _have_ to,” Thorin says, and Bilbo lets out an exasperated little huff. Thorin addresses another part of Bilbo’s statement. “We’re only one of the best bands you’ve ever heard?”

“You know what I mean,” Bilbo says. “Do you have any other improbable hidden talents I should know about?”

“What counts as improbable?” Thorin asks.

Bilbo looks up at Thorin from under his eyelashes. “You tell me.”

There are a lot of things Thorin wants to tell Bilbo. Half of them are rushing things, half of them are inappropriate to say anywhere beyond a room with a door that locks from the inside, and Thorin keeps all of them under wraps for the moment. Bilbo systematically demolishes the pile of food on his plate. He eats alarmingly fast for someone so small, but he still can’t match the sheer volume of food consumed by even a single member of the band. As usual, they have to do presents before cake to ensure that any of the cake will be eaten.

Kili appoints himself as the Birthday Elf, in charge of handing out presents. Thorin finds this incredibly hard to swallow, but Kili is having such a good time that Thorin can’t bring himself to tell him to stop. Each of the seven whose birthdays fell in the last six months get two or three presents, and they all start opening them at once. All except Bilbo, who looks down at the presents in his lap and up at the group, sputtering all the while. “I don’t understand.”

“Your birthday is September 22nd,” Gandalf says. “Your birthday fell in the last six months. Therefore, we’re celebrating.”

“That happened before I signed all of you!” Bilbo protests. His face is red.

“Yes,” Dis says patiently, “but still in the past six months. Open them. Fili and Kili are very excited to see if you like what they picked out.”

Dis is unafraid of pulling the parent card when necessary, and this sounds vaguely ominous to Thorin, but he’s not sure what to do about it. Bilbo pokes through the presents and unearths a narrow one wrapped in bright pink paper. He reads the label aloud. “To Bilbo, from Fili and Kili.”

“Open it!” Kili says. Thorin looks around at him and sees that he’s found the air horn.

Bilbo opens the present while Thorin and Kili fight over the air horn. Thorin gets it, mostly because his desire to not hear the sound again is greater than Kili’s desire to make the sound over and over again. By the time they separate, Bilbo has withdrawn a deep green fountain pen from the narrow box inside the wrappings and is admiring it. “It’s beautiful.”

“Do you like it?” Fili asks. He’s opened one of his presents, which, based on how he’s dressed, consisted of two or three flannel shirts. “We thought you could use it, since all your pens are the shitty plastic kind.”

“Plus, the next time you have to throw it at a reporter, it’ll hurt more,” Kili adds. Bilbo nods. He looks like he’s about to faint. “We thought you’d like green. Like the door of the Seattle house.”

Bilbo is nodding, and blinking rapidly. “I do like it,” he says. “Very much. Thank you, Fili, Kili.”

“Any time,” Kili says. He makes another grab for the air horn.

While Thorin is fending him off, Bilbo opens another package, this one containing a scarf hand-knitted by Ori in green and blue. Thorin’s been watching Ori work on that scarf for two weeks. He never thought about who it was for. The final package contains four pairs of crazily patterned socks. “It gets cold on the bus in the winter,” Bofur explains. “You need better socks, Bilbo – and they might as well be fun socks.”

Bilbo holds up one of the pairs of socks, examining it from every angle. It’s dark green, patterned with orange octopuses. Thorin wonders who in the band looked at Bilbo and decided that he needed this particular pair of socks. Probably Gandalf, based on the way Gandalf’s smiling beatifically from the corner. Meanwhile, Thorin is wishing that he’d gotten Bilbo a present. Any present. He thinks about his options, based purely on what’s in the house, and comes up empty. Unless Bilbo wants a guitar pick, a leaf from outside, or some of Thorin’s baby pictures, Thorin is out of luck as far as presents go.

What makes it worse, of course, is that Thorin got presents for everyone else whose birthdays fell in the last six months. Thorin watches Bilbo try on a pair of the socks – grey, featuring pink elephants – and wishes he had something to give.

“Cake time,” Dis says after a while. It must be a psychologist thing – she’s always able to tell when the band’s cheerful grumbling is about to spill over into an actual fight. “Thorin, will you take care of the candles?”

“Candles?” Bilbo looks up. “There is no way you’re going to be able to fit two hundred and forty-eight candles on a cake, no matter how big it is.”

“Two hundred and forty-eight?” Thorin stops in the act of poking through the cabinet.

“Fili is twenty-two, Bofur is thirty-three, Gloin is thirty-five, Bifur is thirty-eight, Oin is forty-four, and Dori is forty-seven,” Bilbo says.

“Hold on, that only adds up to two hundred and nineteen,” Balin says.

“Add me. That should make two hundred and forty-eight,” Bilbo says. “I’m twenty-nine this year.”

Bilbo and Thorin are the same age. Thorin wonders why he didn’t know that – and why he didn’t get Bilbo a present. “You’re right about the number,” Thorin says, trying not to collapse in on himself, “but the candles don’t go on the cake.”

Bilbo looks puzzled. “Where else are they going to go?”

Dis passes out the candles; Edden lights them. It falls to Thorin to retrieve the cake from the refrigerator, which feels a lot more stressful than it should, given that he’s been playing thousand-seat venues regularly. Still, if you screw up during a show, there are ways to save it. There’s no way to come back from dropping a cake. Thorin makes his way into the dining room and sets the cake down on the table. He spots Bilbo wedged between Gloin and Fili, a lit candle in his hands. His jaw drops when he sees the cake.

“You weren’t kidding,” he says faintly.

“This one looks awesome, Uncle Thorin!” Kili says. He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of the cake. “I love the acorns. Are they new?”

Dis is smirking at Thorin. “T, why don’t you tune us up for the song?”

“We’re a band, Mom,” Fili complains. “We don’t need Thorin to tune us up.”

“Thorin,” Dis says, aiming a quelling look at her sons, “taught both of you how to read music in the time it took one of you to figure out how to use the toilet. A note, please, T? Something that doesn’t put us all in some sort of vocal dungeon.”

Thorin is tempted to drop his voice an octave and a half just because he can. But he provides a normal note, and everyone whose birthday isn’t being celebrated bursts out into a hideous but not at all discordant seven-part harmony. Thorin’s not even sure that Bombur is using words, but the sound he’s making is low enough to rattle everyone’s bones. Kili, whose prohibition on singing extends even to birthday songs, is humming and smiling. There’s a bit of a pileup when it comes time to address the song, as usual. There’s really no good way to address it, so everyone just shouts “Gloin-Bifur-Dori-Fili-Oin-Bofur-Bilbo” in varying orders and at varying speeds. Thorin puts Bilbo’s name first. He figures everyone else is making enough noise to disguise it.

Bilbo looks a little shell-shocked by the end of the song, but when Kili encourages them all to make a wish, he smiles and blows out his candle along with the rest. Gandalf wades into the huddle around the table to cut the cake, and Thorin, who knows what’s about to happen, retreats. They’re not going to run out of cake. Besides, after spending an hour and a half up to his elbows in frosting, he needs a little more distance from the cake before he tries to eat any of it.

Bilbo draws up alongside Thorin, a piece of cake on a paper plate in his hands. He has a slice with two yellow roses, a daisy, three bluebells, and four or five acorns. He also has a piece of his own name, written in frosting – Thorin can tell because of the flourish beneath it – and he’s already started in on it. “This is really good.”

“I didn’t bake it,” Thorin says.

“I know,” Bilbo says. He prods at the slice of cake with his plastic fork, attempting to determine the best angle for a new attack. “When’s your birthday?”

“My – what?” Thorin shakes his head. “We’re celebrating your birthday.”

“Well, I know yours wasn’t in the last six months,” Bilbo says, as though Thorin hasn’t spoken, “which means it’s going to be in the next six months. I don’t want to miss it.”

He looks up at Thorin, smiling slightly. His teeth are tinged blue, which should be horrifying but isn’t in the slightest. “If you don’t tell me,” he says, “I’ll ask Dis. I’m sure she’ll be happy to provide me with some of your baby photos as evidence.”

“She wouldn’t,” Thorin says immediately, but as he thinks about it further he realizes that she definitely would. “My birthday’s April 5th. Not for a while.”

“All right. Here.” Bilbo forces the cake plate into Thorin’s hands so he can extract his phone from his pocket. Thorin watches him put a reminder in his phone, and set it to remind him on the fifth of every month from now until then. “And how old will you be?”

“Thirty.”

“Mm.” Bilbo stows his phone and takes the plate back from Thorin. “It’s a good thing I like older men.”

“It’s five months,” Thorin protests. But Bilbo is smiling and there’s blue frosting on his upper lip and looking at him without kissing him is killing Thorin. He makes himself think about something embarrassing. “I didn’t get you a present.”

“We hadn’t met yet,” Bilbo says, which is the same thing Balin said. It sounds a lot more reassuring coming from Bilbo, but Thorin still makes a face. “Still, if you feel that strongly about it, I’ll accept an I.O.U. in lieu of an actual present at this moment.”

“All right,” Thorin agrees. “One present, to be delivered to you before my birthday, or you don’t have to get me anything. Do you know what you want?”

“Surprise me.”

Bilbo surprises Thorin on a daily basis. Thorin needs to up his game. But at the moment, he’s preoccupied with Bilbo, and the piece of cake on the end of Bilbo’s fork that Bilbo is holding out to him. Bilbo raises his eyebrows, looking from Thorin to the cake and back again. Thorin glances around the room, trying to see what kind of an audience he’s dealing with. Not much of one, as it turns out – everyone else is busy with cake, or fighting over cake, or waiting in line for Gandalf to give them more cake. He should be safe.

Thorin leans forward and eats the piece of cake from Bilbo’s fork. It’s good cake. The way Bilbo is looking at him, eyelids half-lowered and slow smile on his face, is even better. Before anyone else can turn to look at them, Thorin reaches out and wipes the smear of frosting off of Bilbo’s upper lip with his thumb.

Bilbo blinks and sputters. His cheeks are flushed, but he looks almost indignant. “What?” Thorin asks. “Were you saving it for later?”

“Maybe I was,” Bilbo says. He’s scowling, his nose wrinkled, and it’s inexpressibly cute. What he says next wipes the word ‘cute’ right out of Thorin’s head. “Maybe I was leaving it there so you’d have a reason to kiss me later.”

There’s that gut-punch of desire again. Thorin tries to compose himself and partly succeeds. “I don’t need a reason to kiss you later.”

A flush comes up in Bilbo’s cheeks. “Don’t do that,” he says, his voice low. That doesn’t help with Thorin’s composure at all. “Your sister is eight feet away.”

Thorin knows better than to look over his shoulder for her. As soon as he does, she’ll look right at him, and likely as not, she’ll be able to read what he’s feeling all over his face – and that is not something Thorin wants his older sister to see. “You started it.”

“Well, then, I hope you’re intending to finish it.” Bilbo goes back to his piece of cake, the color still up in his cheeks, and Thorin tries to figure out how he gained and lost the upper hand in the space of about thirty seconds.

It’s nearly midnight by the time the party winds down, and it isn’t until everyone’s exhausted and ready for bed that the rest of the band remembers that they never got their bags out of the bus. Thorin seizes the opportunity to get a piece of cake, and he works on it in between cleaning up wrapping paper and scattered paper plates and going after the cake crumbs in the carpet with the indoor vacuum. Bilbo comes back in while Thorin’s attempting to fit one of the yellow frosting roses into his mouth. It’s so sweet that it nearly gives him a headache, and it prevents him from saying anything at all when he sees the look on Bilbo’s face.

“I can’t find my things,” Bilbo says. “Is there any chance we left them in L.A.?”

Thorin swallows the rest of the frosting – it’s like cement – clears his throat, and answers. “We didn’t leave them. I brought them up to our room along with mine. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Bilbo sighs with relief, and Thorin remembers what was in Bilbo’s suitcase; the seals, one of the things from Bilbo’s parents that he now takes with him everywhere. “Thank you,” he says. And then, “Our room?”

“You’re staying with me,” Thorin says. He prevents himself from saying ‘where you belong’ only with great effort.

“Does your sister know?” Bilbo asks. He yawns.

“She put extra pillows on the bed for you,” Thorin says. “Apparently I hog them.”

“You do,” Bilbo says. “Is that usual around here? You keeping your boyfriends and girlfriends in your room when you stay here?”

This time, Thorin knows exactly what Bilbo’s really saying. He’s quite fond of jealous Bilbo, if only because jealous Bilbo makes his skin feel hot. “First of all, none of my boyfriends or girlfriends ever came on tour. Secondly, they never came to this house.”

“Why?” Bilbo asks.

Why? Dis’s house has always been a safe haven for Thorin, somewhere he goes that doesn’t carry associations with being related to the richest recording studio head in the country or with being a starving musician whose life is in ruins. He’s not either of those people here. He’s Dis’s younger brother, and he’s always welcome. Thorin hasn’t brought anyone else here. He hasn’t wanted to.

He says as much to Bilbo, and Bilbo stares at him. Then he gives his head a little shake. “I came with the band. That’s different, then.”

“If you’d just come with the band,” Thorin says, swallowing a yawn of his own, “you wouldn’t be sleeping in my room.”

Bilbo yawns again, then makes a frustrated face. “Should we go, then? To your room?”

“Yes,” Thorin says immediately. He could do without the knowing looks he’s going to get from everyone expect Fili, and he’ll be better equipped to deal with those in the morning. Besides, he barely slept last night. He’s tired, too – but he’d rather be tired upstairs, with Bilbo, in a room with a door. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a lengthy pause between chapters, so while I'm always appreciative of everyone who reads, I'm extra appreciative of anybody who picked it back up again. Special thanks to JuniAsat, inkling (your musings on what TLM actually sound like made me smile), Gerec, arghsigh, this_fish, and Yoanna (who reminded me to update) for your comments and feedback. It's always wonderful to read.
> 
> Updates will hopefully be a little more prompt in the future. Thank you for reading!


	18. Chapter 18

Thorin wakes up alone. The spot in the bed where Bilbo sleeps is empty, sheets crumpled and cold. Thorin sits up, tries to pull back the memory of last night, but it’s difficult. He slept heavily, and he didn’t dream at all. He had Bilbo in his arms when he went to bed. He squints at the nightstand. Bilbo’s phone is still there, which is a good sign – Bilbo never goes anywhere important without it. Thorin sits up, eyes blurry, and makes his way to the closet for a shirt. Then he picks up the phone off the nightstand and heads downstairs, the wooden floors cold against the soles of his feet.

In spite of the fact that it’s ten in the morning, Thorin is still one of the first people downstairs. Edden, the early riser of early risers – according to Dis, he regularly gets up at six am – is at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him and both the New York Times and the local paper spread out around him. He looks up when Thorin comes down. “Hey.”

Thorin nods. He grabs a coffee mug that reads ‘World’s Best Grandma’, a Mother’s Day gift from Kili to Dis back when Kili was still having a hard time with words longer than one syllable, and fills it with coffee before sitting down on the opposite side of the table from Edden. “Any news?”

“Someone who writes for the local paper is a fan of yours,” Edden says. He pushes the relevant page across the table at Thorin. “You should expect a crowd tonight.”

Thorin scans the article. Whoever wrote it references Lindir’s article at least twice, and unfortunately, one of them is Lindir’s description of Thorin. He makes a face. Edden smirks. “Indomitably aloof? It’s one of the wordier descriptions, but I think it fits. That’s what you were like when I met you.”

“I was six.”

“Yeah, and you glared at me for six hours straight the first time I came over for dinner,” Edden says. “I don’t think you even blinked. It was scary.”

“I was six,” Thorin repeats. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“I heard Kili say something about Bilbo throwing a pen at the reporter during the interview,” Edden says. “This seems like a pretty complimentary profile from someone who got a writing implement winged at him.”

“The reporter asked a question Bilbo told him not to,” Thorin says. He takes a sip of coffee. “About my, uh –”

“Don’t call it a problem.” Edden turns a page in the paper.

“My sexual orientation,” Thorin says, enunciating clearly, and Edden snorts. “Anyway, Bilbo had warned him not to before the interview started, and when he did it anyway, Bilbo did – well, that.”

“Kili says Bilbo’s very protective of the band,” Edden says. “He said it reminded him of you.”

Thorin knows his nephews love him, just as he loves them, even if it gets lost in the shuffle of pranking, beer, and skipping assignments for online classes. It catches him off-guard, and he takes a scalding sip of coffee to cover it up. “What else did Kili say?”

“Kili also said you were in love,” Edden says, smirking, “but Kili sees love everywhere. He thinks our raccoon and the neighbor’s raccoon are in love. I didn’t believe it until I saw it.”

Thorin is still not used to talking about Bilbo, being in love, or being in love with Bilbo with anyone. He still wrestles with what to do about it inside his own head. “Saw what?”

“By Durin, you and your sister are alike.” Edden shakes his head. “People in your family, you meet someone today and you’re ready to die for them by tomorrow. You’ve been at it for two months and you’re in love? Dis told me she was going to marry me two weeks in.”

Thorin absorbs this. It doesn’t shock him in the slightest – when Dis brought Edden home, she was beyond serene about it, even though Edden was going to have to spend six hours in a house with Thror and Thrain. She must have known then, beyond fear, beyond doubt. And at that time, they didn’t know there was anything real to be scared of.

“Speaking of our respective better halves,” Edden says, and Thorin nearly spits coffee across the table, “aren’t you wondering where yours is?”

Thorin swallows with an effort and tries to think of what to say. He’s a good liar, in general – except, apparently, when it comes to Bilbo. Thorin settles on a shrug. “I suppose.”

“Nice try,” Edden says. Thorin glares at him, making a liar of five-minutes-ago Thorin in the process. “They’re doing yoga by the tree house. Apparently he’s good at it, and she wanted to see just how good.”

Only the fact that the tree house can’t be spotted from the kitchen window keeps Thorin from lurching out of his seat for a look. He takes another sip of coffee. Edden is still looking at him, which would be fine if Edden hadn’t picked up a few clinical psychologist tricks from Thorin’s sister. “So?” Edden prompts. “Is he good?”

“Very,” Thorin mutters, hoping his face isn’t red. He downs half the coffee.

Thorin hears the front door open and shut, and then footsteps down the hall. He hears his sister’s voice, and Bilbo’s. Dis sounds excited. “You know, Kili totally undersold you,” she’s saying. “I’ve never met someone who can do the scorpion pose who isn’t a yoga teacher.”

“Well, I, uh,” Bilbo stammers, “I, er, practice a lot.”

“I’ve heard,” Dis says. “Kili says you practice every morning when you all aren’t staying in hotels. Have you gotten Thorin to practice with you? What does he think of it?”

Bilbo snorts. “Thorin thinks it’s weird.”

Edden snorts, and Thorin turns red, just in time for Dis and Bilbo to arrive in the kitchen. Bilbo has his purple yoga mat, his cheeks are flushed, and he’s ever so slightly sweaty. It does the same thing to Thorin now as it did the first morning he saw him like this, only now he’s able to do something about it. Bilbo looks surprised to see Thorin at the table. Thorin opens his mouth to defend himself, closes it, then changes his mind and opens it again. “I don’t think it’s weird.”

“I believe the word you used was strange,” Bilbo says. He smirks.

“What I meant,” Thorin says, aware that his sister and her husband are smirking at him, too, “is that whatever you were doing did not look like something human beings are supposed to do.”

Dis drops her yoga mat and heads into the kitchen. “You sort of have a point, T,” she says. “It looks kind of alarming if you just see the finished product. You have to do like twenty different poses to warm up for that one – it doesn’t just happen.”

“Twenty different poses,” Bilbo says, “and practice. Lots of practice. Thorin, why does your mug say ‘World’s Best Grandma’?”

“Hey!” Dis says from the kitchen. “I was looking for that!”

“And,” Bilbo says, staring at Thorin as though Thorin’s grown a second head, “why does your shirt say ‘tone-deaf’ on it?”

Thorin realizes he probably should have looked at the shirt more closely before he put it on. “Kili made it,” he mutters. “Years ago. I’m sure he thought it was funny.”

“It is funny,” Dis says. “I don’t blame you for not wearing it, though. Thorin hides all the horrible gifts Fili and Kili have gotten him in his closet.”

“You got lucky,” Thorin tells Bilbo – anything to avoid talking about the mug, the shirt, or yoga any longer. He’s perfectly happy to keep looking at Bilbo, even though looking at Bilbo makes Thorin want to kiss him, and he doesn’t trust his self-control enough to be able to restrict it to just one kiss. “That fountain pen is one of the nicest gifts I’ve seen them give anybody. They must really like you.”

“Yeah, Kili wanted to get you a megaphone, but Fili talked him out of it,” Edden says.

“I could have used the megaphone, too,” Bilbo says. He pats one of his pockets, then the other, then starts looking agitated. “Has anyone seen my –”

Thorin holds up Bilbo’s phone. Bilbo stares at it for a moment, mouth slightly open, blinking, before he takes it. On anyone else, the expression would look ridiculous – on Bilbo, to Thorin, it’s everything but. “Thanks. I left it upstairs?”

Thorin nods. The coffee is hitting him, and he wishes he’d eaten something first. They’ve got a show tonight, and he needs a cool head – especially since Fili and Kili are likely to be even more difficult than usual. They grew up in Lake Tahoe, they went to school here, and they still have a lot of friends who are likely to be at the show. If Thorin’s going to manage them, and the rest of the band, he needs all his wits about him.

Bilbo looks around the kitchen. “Has anyone else gotten up yet?”

“No,” Dis says. “I can get them. Thorin, where did you hide the air horn?”

“Taped it under the bathroom sink,” Thorin says. Kili hates the sound water makes going through the pipes. “It’s time, anyway. We need a meeting before the show.”

Waking up the rest of the band takes exactly five seconds, once Dis retrieves the air horn, stands underneath the attic stairs, and lets loose an excruciatingly loud blast. Thorin was expecting it, and it still makes him cringe. Bombur makes it downstairs first, nods at Thorin, Edden, and Bilbo, and begins to cook an enormous breakfast. After a moment, Thorin jumps up to help him. He needs something to do with his hands that doesn’t involve Bilbo.

Bombur looks surprised to see him. “Don’t,” Thorin says. He’s not that bad of a cook. Definitely not anywhere near as bad as Dori, who’s been banned from even coming near the food while it’s in progress. “What can I do?”

“You’re on the waffle maker,” Dis says, and Bombur nods in agreement.

Thorin grits his teeth. He hates the waffle maker. But he still needs something to do with his hands. “Fine.”

He sets it up on the kitchen counter. Bilbo sits down on one of the barstools on the other side. “So,” he says. “You can cook, too?”

“Of course I can cook,” Thorin says. “I live alone. How did you think I was feeding myself?”

“Takeout,” Kili says, yawning. He’s made it downstairs ahead of the rest, and has apparently failed to retrieve the air horn from his mother. “Lots and lots of takeout.”

“Takeout is expensive,” Thorin says. “I can cook.”

“I like cooking,” Bilbo says. “My parents taught me. But it’s hard to keep many ingredients on hand when you live alone. Things spoil too quickly.”

Thorin pours powdered pancake mix into a bowl and turns on the water in the sink. Bilbo’s eyes widen. “You’re not going to mix that with water, are you?”

Thorin looks at the bowl, then at Bilbo. “I was,” he says.

“Milk is better.” Bilbo hops off the barstool and comes around to the other side of the counter. “Bombur, do you know if there’s milk in the refrigerator?”

“One-percent, two-percent, skim, or whole?”

This stops Bilbo, but only momentarily. “Why do you have so many different kinds of milk?”

“Everyone here is picky,” Dis says, “and nobody can compromise. Have at it.”

“No,” Thorin says. He’s not protective of the waffle maker, exactly – it’s more that he doesn’t have any idea what’s happening, and it’s making him nervous. “You’re a guest. Guests don’t cook.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo says patiently, “making waffles with water is like making steak tartare with chipped beef. It’s just not done.”

He ducks around Bombur, reaches into the refrigerator, and emerges with a container of whole milk. “Move over. I’m helping.”

Bilbo helping with the waffles quickly turns into Bilbo making the waffles, although he allows Thorin to add blueberries or chocolate chips to the mixture once it’s been ladled into the waffle machine. And Thorin has to admit it; waffles taste better with milk than with water. Beyond that, watching Bilbo cook is like watching Bilbo do anything – captivating, entrancing, the kind of thing Thorin could watch for hours and never get tired of. It almost distracts Thorin from the fact that Bilbo heard him say that yoga was strange two months ago. It would be nice if Thorin could relax where Bilbo is concerned, but he’s not hopeful.

A band meeting takes place over breakfast. Mealtimes are pretty much the only times when band meetings can take place, because it’s the only time when enough people’s mouths are full that Thorin can hear himself talk. Gandalf leans against the wall, observing the proceedings, while Bilbo sits on one of the barstools, typing away on his phone. He doesn’t look happy, but Thorin has a window of opportunity to seize, and he can always talk to Bilbo later.

“Hey,” he says. Then, louder, “Hey! We’ve got a show tonight.”

“We had a show two nights ago,” Fili says. “It’s too early in the morning for shouting.”

“It’s almost noon,” Thorin says, wondering just how late his oldest nephew stayed up last night. “The last show was excellent, as always. But we need to loosen up for tonight’s. We’re not looking at an L.A. crowd this time.”

“You’re going to have a lot of people from the community college,” Dis puts in. She and Edden are observing the meeting. “It could get a little wild.”

“We like wild,” Nori says. “Say, Dis – how would you describe the demographics of the community college?”

Thorin is surprised that Nori knows the word ‘demographics’, let alone that he’s confident enough to use it in a sentence. Dis seems a little thrown as well. “We’ve got a mix of traditional and non-traditional students, anywhere from eighteen to – well, I think our oldest student is seventy-eight. Why?”

Nori is nodding. “How many of them do you think are female and between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five?”

“No,” Thorin says before Dis can answer. If he were close enough to throw something at Nori, he would – as it is, it’s too much of a risk that he’d hit Gloin instead, and Gloin hasn’t done anything. “This is not a dating opportunity. This is a show. We are a band. We’re there to play music, not to pick up coeds like some kind of frat-rock nightmare.”

“That’s quite a description,” Gandalf observes, “and yet, completely accurate. Nori, I believe it would be wise to heed Thorin on this matter.”

“Yeah,” Kili agrees. “Plus, you can always try to pick up girls after the show. What else, Thorin?”

“The venue,” Thorin says. “I’ve been in there before – it’s very dry acoustically. We need to test our sound a couple times before the show. Our set’s an hour and a half long, and we still have to perform with the Indigo Girls in Utah two days from now. I’m not having anyone murdering their voices.”

“I still can’t believe you’re opening for the Indigo Girls,” Dis says. “It’s amazing.”

Thorin couldn’t agree more. He moves on to his next point. He used to make lists for these things, and check them off topic by topic, but everyone else found it too entertaining to concentrate. “Finally,” he says, “some of you are familiar with this town.”

Fili taps Bilbo’s shoulder, and Bilbo jumps. He nearly drops his phone, then scrambles to grab it and cover the screen. Why is he trying to cover the screen? “Yes?”

“He means me and Kili,” Fili says. “We’re familiar with this town. We grew up here.”

“Oh. Of course,” Bilbo says. He looks surprisingly rattled, and when Thorin meets his eyes, he looks away. Thorin’s heart lurches. “Go on.”

“No distractions,” Thorin says, painfully aware that he’s as distracted in this moment as he’s ever been. “No sneaking your friends from high school backstage. No sneaking out from backstage to go see your friends. Do whatever you want when the show’s over, but I need both of you to stay focused.”

“Yes,” Bilbo says. He rockets out of his seat. “On that note, I need all of your phones.”

“What?” Thorin stares at him. “Our phones?”

Kili is cradling his phone protectively. “Why?”

“Thorin, you can keep yours,” Bilbo says. “You never use it for anything but texting, anyway. The rest of you, give them to me. Now.”

“We aren’t even at the venue yet,” Gloin protests. “My wife –”

“Gloin, you can keep your phone, too,” Bilbo says. He glances at Gandalf in an appeal for help, something Thorin only recognizes because he’s done it himself on occasion. He’s never seen Bilbo do it before. If Thorin wasn’t worried before, he is now.

Gandalf gets off the wall. His expression is uncharacteristically grim. “Bilbo knows what he speaks of. Trust him.”

“Please,” Bilbo says, and at that the others start pulling out their phones.

In the end, Bilbo has eleven phones, Thorin and Gloin get to keep theirs, and the rest of the band troops off to get ready to leave. Thorin hangs back. Once the others are gone, Bilbo heads for Thorin. Before Thorin can open his mouth, Bilbo says, “I’m sorry about that – you looked worried, and that’s not what I wanted. I took everyone’s phones because Smaug is on the move.”

Part of Thorin is thrilled that it’s only Smaug, that there’s nothing wrong between he and Bilbo. The other part is so unhappy about Smaug that it forgets to be thrilled. “What do you mean?”

“He’s been hinting at a big announcement on Twitter, sometime this evening,” Bilbo says. “Apart from you – and I guess Gloin doesn’t really do social media – everyone else is glued to their phones twenty-four seven. I don’t want them distracted.”

“Do you know what it is?” Thorin asks.

“No,” Bilbo says. “It could be nothing. He’s premiering that Northern Lights festival in just under a month. It could be something like that, but it’s Smaug, so –”

He shrugs helplessly and looks up at Thorin. “I don’t know. I wish I had more to tell you.”

“No. No, you’re doing wonderfully,” Thorin says. Gandalf, Dis, and Edden are gone, too, although Thorin’s not sure where. And with everyone else gone – Thorin reaches out and pulls Bilbo into his arms. “Did I look all that worried?”

“I imagine you just looked annoyed to everyone else,” Bilbo says, “but to me – and probably Dis, and maybe Gandalf – yes.”

Dis. Thorin turns partway, and Bilbo pulls him back. “Gandalf is telling her. Don’t worry.”

Thorin likes that Bilbo’s hanging onto him. Probably more than he should, given the circumstances. “How long before we have to leave?”

“An hour and a half,” Bilbo says. “Why?”

Thorin kisses him – quietly, and less hungrily than he wants to. “Upstairs.”

“All right,” Bilbo says. He looks startled, but pleased by this turn of events. “Upstairs.”

* * *

“This,” Bilbo says, gasping, “is not fair.”

Thorin looks up from what he’s doing, which is kissing Bilbo’s neck, his jaw, his shoulder – really, anywhere he can reach without letting go. “What isn’t?”

Bilbo reaches up and catches the corner of Thorin’s jaw as though he’s going to push him away, only for the motion to degrade into a soft, stuttered brush of his fingers when Thorin shifts his hands on Bilbo ever so slightly. A little sound escapes Bilbo’s mouth. When he speaks again, it sounds like he’s struggling to keep his thoughts together. “It is not fair,” he manages, “that you got me up here and took my shirt off and you’re doing – oh –”

Thorin shifts his hands again. He likes making Bilbo speechless. He kisses Bilbo’s neck, grazes the pale skin there with his teeth. Bilbo makes a louder sound this time, then claps a hand over his mouth. When he speaks again, his voice comes out muffled. “All of that, and you’re still wearing that damned tone-deaf shirt.”

“Oh,” Thorin says. “So you’d like me to take it off.”

“Most people don’t keep their shirts on while they’re doing this,” Bilbo says. He lowers his hand from his mouth, only to put it back almost immediately. “This was a bad idea.”

“Was it?”

“Everyone – is – in – the – house,” Bilbo manages. “They could hear.”

“I’m not making any noise,” Thorin points out. “What you mean is, they could hear _you_.”

Bilbo manages to twist around in Thorin’s arms so that they’re face to face. “I cannot believe you are trying to turn this into my problem.”

“I’m not the one making noise,” Thorin points out. Bilbo is beyond flustered, and that makes Thorin want to kiss him. Admittedly, Thorin has yet to find something that doesn’t make him want to kiss Bilbo. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I want more time,” Bilbo says. He locks his arms around Thorin’s neck and kisses him, a different type of kiss than he’s given him before. When Bilbo draws back, Thorin feels like something’s been stolen from him. “I want more time, for this, with you, than an hour and a half before we have to go to your next show. Do you know what I mean?”

“Maybe,” Thorin says. Bilbo kisses him again. “That’s not helping me think.”

“I know,” Bilbo says. He touches Thorin’s jaw again. “I don’t want you to stop, but you have to, for now, because if you keep going on like this, I’m not going to be able to let you leave.”

Something about this sentiment sounds familiar to Thorin, but darkly, as though he’s looking at it through water. And that’s what brings it back. The memory of his own reflection warping in the lake in Glacier National Park, the reminder of what’s waiting for him in a year or five years or ten - maybe. Bilbo says that he wants more time. So does Thorin, but Thorin’s on a countdown and he has no idea how much he’s got left. He has to tell Bilbo. But he doesn’t have anything to tell.

“Hold on,” Bilbo says. “You just went away again. What are you thinking about?”

Thorin can’t answer. He pulls Bilbo closer to him, and this time, he lets his head fall forward to rest against Bilbo’s shoulder. Thorin closes his eyes. He’s touched this spot on Bilbo before, kissed it. But this isn’t that. This is something else. Bilbo’s hands make their way up into Thorin’s hair, adding braids and undoing them. It’s comforting. Who was the last person Thorin went to for comfort? Not Dis – he can’t put that on her, not when she has Edden and Fili and Kili and herself to worry about. The band? The band needs Thorin as their lead singer, the person who writes their music and arranges the covers and stops half the band from leading the other half into disaster. There’s no space for Thorin to be anyone else. But what about Bilbo? Who does Thorin have space to be here, with him?

“I like your family,” Bilbo is saying. His voice is soft and reflective. “Now that I’ve met almost all of them.”

“Who didn’t you meet?” Thorin asks. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“Your father,” Bilbo says. He hesitates for a moment, and in the quiet, Thorin can hear the sound of his heartbeat. “Thorin, what happened to him?”

Thorin’s mind goes white for a moment. When Thorin doesn’t speak, Bilbo keeps talking. “And your mother, I suppose. What happened to her?”

Thorin still can’t speak. Bilbo’s voice takes on a worried, unhappy note. “I’m sorry, I’ve put my foot in it. You don’t have to –”

“My mom died,” Thorin says after a moment. “Dis was nineteen – she was away at college – and I was four. It was an aneurysm, according to the autopsy. No one could have predicted it, no one could have stopped it. That’s what my father always told us.”

“Thorin, that’s awful,” Bilbo says quietly.

“If you think that’s awful, try this – I can’t even remember what she looked like,” Thorin says. It’s the one hole in his memory that doesn’t scare him. Maybe because it’s always been there. “Not without a picture, and there aren’t many of those. She didn’t like to be in pictures.”

“That sounds like someone I know,” Bilbo says. He’s tentative, careful – he’s never been like that around Thorin before. “There’s that picture of your high school graduation on the desk. I’ve never seen someone look unhappier on a happy occasion.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Thorin says. He remembers being confused and uncomfortable, while everyone else hugged him and smiled and pretended like there was something to celebrate. “Everyone was making such a big deal out of it, and I didn’t do anything special. I just did what I was supposed to do. Dis graduated at the top of her class, and I just – graduated. Everyone does that.”

“First of all, everyone doesn’t do that,” Bilbo says. His hands are slow in Thorin’s hair. “If you want, I can go get my phone and produce high school graduation statistics for the past two decades.”

“No,” Thorin says. “Stay. Please.”

Thorin thinks he can hear a smile in Bilbo’s voice. “Well, since you asked,” he says. “Secondly, it doesn’t matter if everyone does it, because all that mattered to the people in that photo was you – and you were doing it. But I know you don’t want to do what everybody does.”

“How do you know that?” Thorin buries his face in the curve of Bilbo’s shoulder. He likes this more than he thought he would. He thought it would feel stupid and exposed and vulnerable, and it’s not like that. Not at all.

“People who want to do what everybody does don’t go out and build thirteen-person bands,” Bilbo says. “They don’t write their own music and sing it like it means something. They don’t play everywhere that will take them because playing is what matters.”

He laughs a little. “They definitely don’t seduce their agents.”

Thorin thinks about protesting this characterization, but then he remembers that whatever he did, it worked. Bilbo can call it what he wants. Bilbo’s skin is warm, and soft, and the sound of his heartbeat keeps Thorin steady. “Do you want to hear about my dad?”

“If you want to tell me,” Bilbo says quickly. “You don’t have to. I know more about what happened there.”

Thorin wonders what Bilbo’s heard. The collapse of Thorin’s family was front-page news for two weeks, but most of the news outlets got the appropriate version of events completely right. That was mostly thanks to Dis. She clamped down on the rumors, put out the official version of events, and stonewalled any requests for interviews or sly searches for more information. Thror would have been proud to see it; he always thought Dis would have been perfect in P.R. if she hadn’t had such a “damned sentimental streak”. It was a good thing Dis was in charge, because if it had been down to Thorin to do it, there would have been inaccuracies and conspiracy theories flying around for years. After Thror’s death and Thrain’s departure, Thorin was in no shape to do anything for anyone.

“The last time I saw him was the day my grandfather died,” Thorin says. Bilbo sucks in a breath, and for some reason, this makes Thorin feel better – to hear that it sounds devastating to someone else, to hear that he hasn’t been overreacting this whole time. “He told Dis and me what happened with the company – until Smaug filed for bankruptcy, the two of us didn’t know. Dad tried to save it, but it was too late. He told us he was leaving to take care of a few things, and that he’d be back soon. We waited all night.”

Bilbo’s hand slides from Thorin’s hair to the back of his neck, covering it as though he’s protecting Thorin from a blow. It nearly brings tears to Thorin’s eyes. “Where were you waiting?”

“The hospital,” Thorin says. To this day he can’t stand the smell of doctor’s offices, which will make going to get the test ten times more difficult. “And neither of us have heard from him or seen him since.”

“Do you know why he left?” Bilbo asks after a moment.

Thorin hates lying to Bilbo – and make no mistake, this one is a lie. “No.”

Bilbo doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Thorin takes the opportunity to blink, to steady his breathing, so that Bilbo won’t know this whole thing has brought him to tears. It’s been three years. He no longer wants to punch through a wall every time he thinks about it. The anger at them, Thror and Thrain both, is no longer quite so overwhelming. But Thorin always expected the anger to fade. He just didn’t think anything would fill the space it left behind.

As unhappy as Thorin looks in his graduation picture, he would give almost anything to go back, even if he couldn’t change what was waiting for them seven years down the line. He’d want to take every last moment, hold it up to the light and secure it in his memory. His grandfather’s hand on his shoulder, his father smiling and proud, because neither Thror nor Thrain graduated high school and Thorin had broken what they were starting to think was a family curse. Kili and Fili treating Thorin like a jungle gym, hanging onto both his legs and climbing all over him and fighting over who got to wear what they called his hat. Dis hugging him as soon as he was offstage with his diploma, even though she was supposed to be waiting in the audience. All of those moments where Thorin was uncomfortable and confused – he’d take them and change them into something happy, because he knows what happens after, and it’s better to smile while you can.

So no, Thorin’s not angry any more. Thorin is sad. And sad is worse.

“No. No, no, no.” Bilbo’s hand is on Thorin’s cheek, swiping at tears that he somehow knows are there. “I didn’t mean to – I don’t want you to be – oh, forget this. Are you all right?”

“I’m not crying.”

“Not crying does not equal all right,” Bilbo says, and he sounds so much like he did the day Thorin met him that it brings a faint smile to Thorin’s face. Bilbo’s gentleness is killing Thorin – his hands in Thorin’s hair, on the back of his neck, on his cheek. The softer kind of kisses, the ones that don’t set Thorin on fire but keep him warm all the same. “I’m sorry. I’ve done all sorts of nonsense to your hair.”

“No,” Thorin says. “I’m going onstage like this tonight.”

“You’re only saying that because you haven’t seen it,” Bilbo says. He laughs a little. “Speaking of things you haven’t seen, I believe I’m going to need to borrow some of your stage makeup.”

This, of all things, makes Thorin draw back. He’s done a number on Bilbo’s neck – there are fewer marks, but they’re impressive, and the skin around them has been scuffed up by Thorin’s beard. Thorin transfers his gaze from Bilbo’s neck to Bilbo’s face. “Did that hurt?”

“Did it – oh, for pity’s sake! Did I say or do anything to indicate that it hurt?” Bilbo says indignantly. “Because if I did, I’ve caused a miscommunication of epic proportions. It did not hurt. It was the opposite of hurt.”

He considers Thorin, and his exasperation drains away into a more contemplative look. “I wish yours would heal faster.”

“You don’t have to wait for them to heal,” Thorin says. He tries not to sound too hopeful about it.

“If I didn’t wait, there wouldn’t be enough stage makeup in the world to cover up what I’d do to you,” Bilbo says mildly, as though he’s commenting on the weather instead of giving Thorin’s self-control a major stress test. He cups the side of Thorin’s face with his hand, and the way he looks at Thorin – “Are you certain you’re all right?”

“Yes,” Thorin says. It’s true and not true all at once. He’s all right here, and now, but he can’t make any promises for what will happen once they move from this spot. Safety and comfort, once he’s found them, are extremely hard to let go of – and so is the person who brought them. “Bilbo –”

“Yes?”

Thorin bites down on _I love you_ before it can escape. “I’ll take off the tone-deaf shirt.”

“Yes, you will,” Bilbo says. “I’m not letting you go onstage like that.”

Thorin’s premonition that the moment of peace will disappear when Bilbo lets go of him comes true. He’s steady getting dressed, braiding his hair, sliding on the beads; unsteadier when they’re loading onto the bus; unstable by the time they’re headed to the venue. It’s not just his father and grandfather, it’s not just Smaug – it’s both of them plus the family madness, plus Bilbo. It’s too much to keep locked up in his head. Thorin has to let some of it out. And since he can’t talk about it, not all of it, he writes it down.

Thorin gets a verse first, and then a chorus. He suspects there’s another verse somewhere, but he’s not going to go looking for it right now. Thorin’s not trying to write a song. He’s trying to clear his mind. Unfortunately, his mind has decided that the best way to clear itself is to write a song, one that all but hurls the truth of Thror’s death at the listener. Thorin can’t play this. He can never play this. He can’t even show it to the rest of the band. Thorin and Dis keep this secret closer than all but the one.

But Thorin keeps writing it, anyway. Maybe he’ll burn it once it’s over. Maybe that will cast out whatever’s haunting him for a little while. He’s wedged up against the window in an effort to keep what’s on his page secret from Bilbo, who’s not looking at it anyway, and the heel of his hand is covered with ink from how many times he’s accidently rubbed over the words. The worst part about it all is that it feels painful coming out. Thorin’s jaw hurts from clenching it; his temples ache from holding in tears; his composure is in tatters from everything he’s trying not to think and say and do. Finally he slams the notebook shut. There’s only so much he can take at once.

“Thorin,” Bilbo says, and Thorin looks, “here.”

Bilbo is offering his hand. Thorin takes it, and Bilbo folds his other hand over Thorin’s, too. Bilbo’s hands are strong and small. He looks at Thorin. Thorin can never decide which he likes better – the way Bilbo talks to him or touches him or looks at him. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to choose. Bilbo looks away eventually, and he doesn’t let go of Thorin’s hand, so Thorin keeps looking at him. Thorin wants to play this show, and play it well – it’s for his sister, and he loves music so much that even his worst emotions can’t keep it at bay. But then, more than anything, Thorin wants to go home and sleep this off.

Thorin wonders what he means by home, and a moment later, wondering why he felt the need to wonder at all. He knows where home is. Home is his family, all of them on this bus. Home is sitting in the seat next to him, holding his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this in spite of the lengthy yet infrequent updates, and special thanks to elengel, JuniAsat, Gerec, Yoanna, mandzs and adiaphora for leaving comments. It always means a lot. 
> 
> I'll be trying for once-a-month updates following this chapter!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Discussion of dark themes.

Thorin’s voice feels wrecked and they’re only halfway through the show. Luckily, it doesn’t sound half as wrecked as it feels. He wishes he had some water, but he never brings water onstage with him – he’s always thought it was weak. Before-now Thorin was an idiot, and current Thorin is paying the price. He swallows once or twice, lets Fili take the lead part on one of the covers, and throws himself back into the fray.

The acoustics in the venue are worse than Thorin remembers – at least, worse for the kind of music he plays. The space takes the sound and swallows it, and Thorin tries to summon up the same wild energy from the shows before Los Angeles, hoping the band hasn’t forgotten how. They haven’t, and they feed it back to him, but it’s still a lot of space to fill, and his voice feels raspy, even if it doesn’t sound like it yet. Fili and Dwalin, who stand on the same line as Thorin does, keep shooting him covert, worried glances, although they’re careful enough about it that no one in the audience will notice. Thorin pretends he doesn’t see it. It’s not like he can tell them that his voice sounds hellish because he was crying earlier.

There was no news of Smaug before the show, although Thorin was texting Bilbo and Gandalf about it up until the moment before they went onstage. He left his phone back in the green room – if something’s happened, he won’t know about it until the rest of the band does – and he’s decided that no matter what, he’s not going to think about it until after they take their bows. Thorin is very good at not thinking about things. At least, some things.

Thorin is playing the solo when he remembers Dis in the audience. He references her specifically in the song, and he never asked her if she’d heard it, what she thought of it. He hopes she likes it. He hopes for her, and he thinks of Bilbo, who was there listening to this song the first time he ever played it. What does Bilbo think of it now, with most of the backstory and context intact? What does Bilbo think, period?

Thorin’s playing a good show, with a good audience. Whatever’s going on inside his head, it’s not coming out on his face. He plows through the set, one song after another. Someday Soon stays in the lineup after the L.A. show, and the sound of Thorin’s voice catches up to how it feels – but only once he’s hit the last note and played the closing chords. Once his eyes get used to the light, he sees Dis and Edden in the front row. They’re both wearing band t-shirts, handmade, of course, by Kili. Gandalf also had one forced on him – he’s in the row behind Thorin’s sister and brother-in-law. Thorin knows where Bilbo’s sitting, but if he looks at Bilbo right now, he’s not sure he can hold himself together.

They close the set with Born to Run, a song that’s expected to be sung in a roughened voice. Thank Durin for that. Thorin bows, the rest of the band does the same, and they exit the stage followed by the sound of half the audience on their feet.

“Encore,” Kili says, grinning. “What do we play?”

Their encores are usually two songs long, and Thorin’s out of ideas. Most of his mental resources are going into not being dragged down by his thoughts. He sees his phone where he left it, screen side up. The screen is flashing up notifications. A lot of notifications. Thorin’s heart sinks, and he knows – while they’ve been onstage, playing for Thorin’s sister and for Fili’s and Kili’s hometown crowd, Smaug has made his move.

Balin doesn’t have his phone, and he can’t see Thorin’s, but he knows from Thorin’s expression that something’s gone wrong. He takes over the planning without missing a beat. “Fili, you’ll sing lead on one of them,” he says. The applause is beginning to fade. He starts shooing the rest of the band back onstage, two and three at a time. Fili suddenly looks like he’s about to faint. “You pick that one. Thorin, you’ve got the closer. Decide by the time Fili’s song is over.”

Fili picks an original, one of the two or three that he’s written, the only one that they play regularly. Thorin’s harmony is tricky, but at least it’s low, and the relative ease of singing it leaves part of his mind free to focus on the actual closing song. He should pick something happy, something aimed upward, but Thorin doesn’t have very many songs like that in his repertoire. He finally settles on Won’t Back Down, which at least has a solid rhythm, and while the audience is clapping for Fili, who can’t stop grinning, Thorin passes the word to the rest of the band.

Part of Thorin thinks it’s appropriate, because their two-month reprieve from Smaug is over and they’re not going to go back into hiding this time. That it’s a symbolic choice, and maybe it is, to the extent that it resonates with the crowd. But Thorin finds it hard to sing. For the rest of the songs, he can tap into an emotion, something that gives the song power. He’s not sure what the emotion is here. Resilience? Revenge? Resignation? Thorin bets on the last one. The lyrics don’t sound like someone who’s proud and defiant and hopeful. They sound like someone who knows that the hits keep coming, someone who’s bracing themselves.

Thorin definitely feels like he’s bracing himself. Whatever’s waiting for him on his phone, whatever Smaug has done to them now, is nothing he wants to see or handle. But Thorin doesn’t get a choice about that. All he can do is take what comes.

So he sings, and for a few moments he’s lost in the music, pouring everything he has into the words and the accompaniment. When it’s over, Thorin’s voice is rough and ruined and the crowd is on their feet.

The band piles backstage, laughing and smiling, making their plans for tonight and tomorrow night – it’s been decided that they’re staying in Lake Tahoe a little while longer. Only Thorin and Balin know that something bad is waiting for them. When they get to the green room, Gandalf and Bilbo are back there. But so are Dis and Edden. Edden looks like he wants to break something. So does Dis, but Dis also looks like she wants to cry, and Thorin hasn’t seen her look like that since – since – and Thorin knows what Smaug has done, even before he picks up his phone.

Kili and Fili start towards their parents, but as soon as they look into their mother’s face, they come up short. “Mom?” Kili says, and his voice is so small. “What’s wrong?”

Dis smiles. “Nothing. You were wonderful tonight.”

“Dad?” Fili appeals to his father. “Something happened. What is it?”

Thorin feels hate for Smaug roar up within him. This should be a happy moment. This should be a happy night, and Smaug is about to ruin it for all of them – not just Thorin and Dis, but Kili and Fili and the entire band. Not because he has to. Just because he can. And there’s nothing Thorin can do to stop him. He picks up his phone, because he has to see for himself, because he’s not going to force Dis to tell him when she already has to tell her sons, because if it’s Bilbo who tells him Thorin knows he’ll collapse like a house of cards. Thorin presses the first notification.

It’s a tweet, accompanied by a photo. Thorin’s eyes lock on the photo first, because he’s seen it before. Some of the information’s been blacked out, although Thorin can’t imagine why. There’s no point to it, because Smaug has left the name and date intact. It’s Thror’s death certificate, three years old. And below the name and date and a few lines of blacked-out text, it spells out the cause of death in seven unforgiving words. _Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Suicide_.

Thorin hates that word. It sounds neat and small and clean, when there was nothing neat or clean about it. He drags his eyes away from it and up to the text of the tweet. _Just wondering if @rivendellrecords knew what sort of unstable soap opera they were getting involved in when they signed Thorin Oakenshield. If they didn’t, they do now_.

The way he frames it, it’s like he’s doing Bilbo and Bilbo’s company a favor. Maybe he is. Thorin can’t look at Bilbo right now. He looks up and over Fili’s shoulder, into his sister’s face. Her expression is still and masklike, and Thorin knows what she’s wondering, because it’s the same thing he’s thinking of. Do they tell Fili and Kili – and everyone else, because they’re all going to see it too, as soon as they get their phones back? Do they break the news to their families, by blood and by choice, before Smaug can do it for them?

Dis nods. Her eyes are hard and shiny with tears. After a moment, Thorin nods, too. It feels like putting a rope around his neck.

“Fili, Kili,” Dis says, “and all of you, actually. You had an incredible show tonight. It was a privilege to watch.”

Kili’s crossed over from worried into scared. An icy fist closes around Thorin’s heart, and the only reason it’s not worse is because Thorin knows Kili is safe, because the second half of this secret is something Kili will never have to worry about. “Mom?”

Dis swallows hard. Then Thorin sees her shift, the same way she did in the hospital three years ago – from someone who’s crumbling under impossible grief into someone who’s going to face it head-on without blinking. “Kili, Smaug leaked your great-grandfather’s death certificate on Twitter.”

“So?” Fili says. “That’s a shitty move, but we know how he died.”

“No,” Thorin says, because Dis is looking at her son with inexpressible sadness and Thorin isn’t going to make her do this. After all, Dis was on the fence about whether to tell them, struggling with whether to burden them with the truth or protect them from it. Thorin was the one who convinced her to protect them, not just from this but from all of it, even before they knew Dis and Kili and Fili were safe. “You don’t.”

Kili wheels on him. “I don’t understand,” he says, and he sounds so hurt and confused – the way Thorin felt then, the way he still feels when he thinks about it too long. “What happened?”

“He killed himself,” Thorin says, and he hears the sharp intake of breath from the rest of the band. Kili is backing up from him, shaking his head, and Thorin forces himself to keep going. “He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. They tried to revive him on the way to the hospital, but you can’t bring someone back from that. They tried, though. If that helps at all.”

Thorin doesn’t think it’ll help. It didn’t help him, and he was there, watching it unspool in real time, too fast and too slow all at once. Fili’s hands are clenched into fists at his sides. “Why?” he demands. “Why did he do it?”

“He didn’t leave a note,” Thorin says, and over Fili’s shoulder, he sees Dis’s shoulders slump and her face crumple with relief. They’re telling the truth, the two of them – but not all of it. Not until they have to. Maybe they’ll never have to. “You’re smart, Fili. I’m sure you can extrapolate.”

“I don’t want to extrapolate!” Fili explodes. That’s the reaction Thorin was expecting from at least one of his nephews – although it’s coming later in the game than he thought it would. “I want to know why you didn’t tell us that Great-Grandpa killed himself!”

“You didn’t need to know,” Thorin says. “You still don’t.”

“Oh, so you would have just kept lying to us forever?” Fili turns towards Dis, and Thorin sees his sister step back. Dis never steps back. Dis never gives in. “I can’t believe you’d do this!”

“It wasn’t her idea!” Thorin snaps. “It was mine.”

The way Fili rounds on him, the look in his eyes – that’s going to be seared in Thorin’s memory until his memory fails him. “You?”

“Uncle Thorin?” Tears are sliding down Kili’s cheeks. Without Thorin noticing, Balin and Dwalin and Edden have come around behind him, their hands on his shoulders. “Why?”

He sounds plaintive, confused. Betrayed. Thorin repeats himself. He doesn’t have a better answer. “You didn’t need to know.”

“That wasn’t your call to make!” Fili’s almost shouting. “We were eighteen and nineteen – adults! We were adults! We had a right to know!”

Thorin’s temper breaks loose. His nephew is shouting at him, demanding why he wasn’t told the very thing Thorin wants most in the world to forget, and Thorin can’t stand there and take it now any more than he could have then. “What right?” he explodes, and Fili flinches. “The right to see what your grandfather looked like with half his face blown off? The right to get seventy separate pieces of glass stuck in your feet trying to get to his body? The right to be in that ambulance watching people try to save someone who was gone the instant he pulled the trigger? You want to talk about your rights? You have a right not to think about it, not to see it every single time you close your eyes! You’re lucky.”

Thorin is saying more than he means to, but he can’t stop himself. Kili is crying harder now, his hand clamped over his mouth to keep in the sobs. Fili’s defiance is waning by the second. He doesn’t look angry or hurt now – he looks horrified, and that almost makes Thorin feel better. Like he’s finally gotten the point across. He steps closer to Fili, and Fili holds his ground, but only just. Fili’s blue eyes are wide and welling with tears, but he’s too proud to let them fall, too proud even to blink them away. The last time Thorin saw Fili cry was when his last girlfriend ended things. He’s crying now, and it’s Thorin’s fault. All of this is Thorin’s fault.

He swallows hard. “Your mother wasn’t trying to hurt you, or lie to you. She was trying to keep you safe. She was trying to keep you whole.”

“Thorin –” Dis starts, but Thorin isn’t about to let her take the fall.

“It was on me,” Thorin says. “It was my call, and I made it. Be angry at me. If you want to fight, let’s fight. But don’t blame your mother for this. This one is mine.”

Thorin’s face is burning and so are his eyes and he’s breathing hard, like he’s just run miles upon miles at a full sprint. His heart is crashing against his rib cage. He watches his nephews, wondering if one of them is going to take a swing at him, how many hits he’ll take before they’ve beaten their anger out on him. But Fili is crying now, too. He falls back to where his brother stands, and Balin and Dwalin step back, letting Dis and Edden draw their sons into a four-way embrace. Kili and Fili are angry, hurt, heartbroken, and their parents are holding them together. They’re complete that way. There’s no space in their family for Thorin.

Thorin can’t be in this room another second. Not with everyone who’s turned away from Fili and Kili to give them privacy looking at him. Almost all of them are family, too, family who were lied to the same way Kili and Fili were, but Thorin can’t read anger on their faces. Instead he sees sadness and hurt and pity. Pity. They’re sad for Dis and Kili and Fili, for themselves, but they pity Thorin. So many terrible things have happened tonight. But this is the one that Thorin can’t stand for.

Thorin tucks his phone into his pocket and heads for the door. Balin moves to stop him, and so does Bofur. “Thorin, no.”

“Get out of my way,” Thorin snarls.

“You shouldn’t be alone right now,” Bofur says.

“And because I shouldn’t be alone, I should be with the lot of you?” If they don’t move, Thorin is going to have to make them move, and he doesn’t want to do that. He’s hurt enough people tonight. He can’t hurt them, too. “Just let me go.”

Bofur opens his mouth again, but Balin stops him. “Turn your phone’s volume up. If we call you, you’re going to answer – because if you don’t, we’ll find you anyway and knock the shit out of you.”

Balin doesn’t make idle threats. Thorin knows he means it. He whips his phone out of his pocket and turns the phone from silent to full volume. Balin nods. Then he catches Bofur’s arm and pulls him out of the way, leaving Thorin’s way clear to escape. Thorin glances over his shoulder as he blows through the doorway and out into the hall. He sees the faces of his family, his friends, their eyes wide and sad. Thorin’s eyes settle on one particular face. Bilbo, standing very poised and very still, watching him. Thorin thinks about earlier in the day, but the memory comes up coated in shards of glass. Bilbo probably regrets comforting him now. Thorin would, too, after watching himself blow up on his nephews and storm out of the room.

But Thorin’s committed himself to this course of action. He might as well complete it. He lets the door swing shut behind him and heads off down the hall.

It takes some quick thinking and Thorin’s sharpest reflexes to avoid getting waylaid by audience members who are circling the stage door. Luckily for him – maybe the only lucky thing in this whole night – he knows his way around the theater. He sneaks around to the other side of the stage, goes down the stairs, and leaves through one of the emergency exits that doesn’t sound an alarm when you step through. Then he heads around to the back of the building, ducks down an alleyway, and comes out on another street. Thorin wants to run, or drive, or jump, something fast and sudden that would shake him loose from this. Running would feel right.

Thorin makes himself walk.

He knows his way around the city center; he’s spent enough time here. Thorin avoids the lighted, populated streets, partly because if he’s going to be recognized anywhere, it would be here in this city, partly because he’s hoping someone will try to mug him. Thorin could use a good fight. But the material facts about himself haven’t changed – he’s still six foot two and wearing a leather jacket. Not the most appealing target. The people who pass Thorin give him a wide berth, and as a result, his mind is free to settle on all of the things he’s trying not to think about.

The memory of Thror’s death is hammering at him, demanding to be let in, and Thorin can only keep it out for so long. He can’t be around other people when he stops fighting it. Thorin works his way through the city until he comes to a park where he used to take Kili and Fili to play. His nephews’ faces swim through his head – Fili’s anger, Kili’s betrayal, both of their tears. Thorin did that to them. He and Dis decided together to keep silent, but Thorin’s nephews need their mother more than they need him. Of course Thorin should be the one to take the fall. But Thorin could have picked a thousand better ways to take the fall than spilling out the story of what really happened the night Thror died.

Kili and Fili always liked this park best, because it has a rock garden in addition to the jungle gym. Based on what they’ve told him, this particular park is a haven for teenagers after dark, a place they go to drink and smoke and do things they can’t do in their parents’ houses. But it’s nearly winter, and it gets cold fast around here. The park is silent and empty when Thorin gets there. He bypasses the jungle gym and heads into the rock garden. Memories of Fili and Kili fly past him as he walks. Kili, always the better climber of the two, perched on a tall rock, crowing with pride until he realized he couldn’t get down. Fili skinning his knee and trying not to cry because Kili was watching. Thorin taught them to climb here, but he’s not climbing tonight.

Thorin picks one of the largest rocks and sits down in its shadow. The stone is ice-cold even through his shirt and jacket. When Thorin looks up, he can see faint stars, clearer here than anywhere they’ve been since Montana but impossibly distant. It doesn’t matter. Thorin’s not here for the view. He tilts his head back against the stone and closes his eyes. The memory lashes out at him again, and this time, Thorin takes the hit full across the face.

They were supposed to be having a family meeting. That’s what Thrain’s text had said, sent to Thorin and Dis and Thror. He wanted them all to be at the house at 8 pm. Dis had protested the time, saying she could get there earlier – she was on standby for an earlier flight – but Thrain held firm. Thorin said he’d be there early. His life was at least partially in ruins. Where else was he going to go? Thror never responded to the text. But that was normal, at that point. Any situation involving Thorin was a situation Thror wanted nothing to do with.

So Thorin got there early. Thrain wasn’t there yet; he was waiting at the airport for Dis’s plane to get in. The front door was open, so Thorin let himself in and kicked off his shoes. He could hear Thror moving around upstairs, doors closing and opening, but he didn’t worry about it. He sat down in the living room and screwed around on his phone, even though the repercussions from the data leak were still ongoing. Thorin couldn’t stop himself from reading it.

Someone was sending his ex-girlfriend interview requests, and his other exes, too, although none of them were responding. Thorin’s ex-girlfriend from high school texted him, told him she was sorry about what was happening. One of his ex-boyfriends texted, saying he was sorry, too – but that Thorin should have expected something like this. Thorin blocked his number after that. It had been a week, and if Thorin heard one more person tell him that he should have expected it, he was going to put that person through the wall. Starting with his grandfather.

The last time Thorin saw Thror, they’d fought. Had they ever fought. Thrain had to separate them, and it was only because Thorin wouldn’t hit his father and Thror wouldn’t hit his son that no one threw a punch. Thorin remembers his mood darkening the longer he thought about it. He was thinking about how much he didn’t want to see his grandfather. Not that night. Not ever again.

And because Thorin’s mistakes always came back to haunt him, even then, that was when he heard the gunshot.

It shattered Thorin’s eardrums. At least, that was what it felt like, and for a moment he just sat there, unable to understand what was happening. It came together in little shards. There was a gunshot. The gunshot came from inside the house. The gunshot didn’t come from downstairs, where Thorin was. The gunshot came from upstairs, where Thror was. Thorin jumped off the couch and ran upstairs, dialing 911 as he went.

As he took the stairs two at a time, Thorin still thought – well, he doesn’t know what he thought. But he thought he’d find his grandfather, alive, and probably angry at whoever tried to break into his house. In fact, Thorin was probably going to be in trouble for calling the cops in the first place. Thorin passed room after room, their doors hanging open. The only door shut was the one that led into Thror’s study. When Thorin stepped towards the door, he felt cold air on his feet.

By that point, the 911 dispatcher was on the line, asking questions. Questions like what happened, what’s going on, who is in the house with you. Thorin answered: Gunshot, I don’t know, just my grandfather. All the while he was trying the doorknob, then looking for the key. He said his grandfather’s name. Quietly at first, then louder. And louder again, until the 911 operator told him that the EMTs were on the way. Thror never answered, and finally, Thorin put his shoulder against the study door and broke it down.

The window was broken. Cold air rushed in, and there was glass on the floor, but Thorin didn’t see it until it was too late. Thorin didn’t see the gun, either. All he was seeing was his grandfather, sprawled sideways on the floor. Thorin didn’t feel the glass going into the soles of his feet, or into his knees when he sunk down beside Thror. Blood soaked into Thorin’s jeans, his grandfather’s blood and his own. Something in Thorin’s head told him to hold his grandfather in his arms, to cradle him until the ambulance came. But Thorin took one look at Thror’s face, what was left of it, and nearly vomited. He couldn’t do what he was supposed to do. All he could do was sit and wait for someone to get there, someone who would tell him what else he was supposed to be doing.

The rest of it slips through Thorin’s memory in a blur. The ride to the hospital. The doctors and nurses taking Thror away. They said he was gone before Thorin broke down the study door. The police wanted to talk to Thorin – checking details, they said, so they could decide if they were going to investigate it as an instance of foul play. Thorin can’t remember what he said to them, but it must have been enough to convince them that he didn’t kill his grandfather. It was two hours before one of the doctors noticed that not all of the blood on Thorin’s clothes was his grandfather’s, and ten minutes after that before they figured out where it came from. And as bad as all of that was, things didn’t get better when Dis and Thrain arrived. They got worse.

That was the first half of the worst night of Thorin’s life. Thorin yanks himself back into the present and tries to settle his breathing, because he’s panicking now, and Thorin can’t panic. He used to say that he doesn’t panic. Now he does. Thorin opens his eyes and tries to settle back into his body. Not Vail, three years ago. Lake Tahoe, now.

Thorin’s cold. Very cold. His hands are shaking a little bit, and he’s starting to wonder how long he’s been sitting out here. Thorin reaches into his pocket, his fingers leaden, and draws out his phone. No phone calls – however long Thorin’s been gone, Balin and the others haven’t called him – but one text, sent forty-five minutes ago, from Bilbo. Thorin opens it. Three words: _Where are you_?

Thorin texts back with the name of the park. He knows that’s all Bilbo will need.

Thorin doesn’t know how long it is before someone finds him. Long enough to get very, very cold, but he still looks up when he hears the footsteps across the gravel. Bilbo’s voice is soft. “Thorin?”

“Here,” Thorin says. Then he winces. His voice sounds worse than it did when he was sick, and that’s saying something. Bilbo appears out of the darkness, navigating by the light on his phone. Thorin can’t see his face, not with the light readjusting his eyes, and he asks the most important question first. “Fili and Kili – and Dis – are they all right?”

“They are,” Bilbo says. “In fact, they wanted to come find you themselves, but they lost.”

Something about this sounds odd to Thorin. “Lost what?”

“The arm-wrestling,” Bilbo says, and in spite of everything, Thorin almost bursts out laughing. Arm-wrestling. Of course his family would settle the question of who’s going to retrieve Thorin by arm-wrestling. “Kili was the easiest to beat, but your sister gave me a run for my money.”

If Dis is composed enough to arm-wrestle Bilbo, a lot of things must have changed while Thorin was gone. “What happened?”

“As soon as you left, Kili and Fili were worried about you,” Bilbo says. He sits down next to Thorin, his back against the rock. He pulls out his phone and sends a text that he doesn’t bother to hide from Thorin – it reads _Found him_. “They wanted to come find you right away, but Balin told them to give you space, and Dis filled in the rest of the story while we were doing that.”

“I shouldn’t have shouted at them,” Thorin says. His heart sinks when he remembers what he did to his nephews, Fili especially. “I’m their uncle, and none of it was their fault.”

“None of it was yours, either,” Bilbo says. He’s wearing the scarf Ori knitted for him. “Dis was very insistent on that. Thror killed himself. Smaug leaked the story. You and Dis decided together not to tell Fili and Kili. You didn’t do this to your family.”

“No, I just vomited up my feelings all over them,” Thorin says. He tries not to be disgusted with himself. It doesn’t work. “It should have been about them. They were the ones who were lied to.”

“It is about them,” Bilbo says. “And you, and Dis, and your father. It’s your family that Smaug’s coming after. It’s your family and your band he wants to hurt. Speaking of him, I’ve looked up the laws in Colorado surrounding death certificates, and they’re supposed to be confidential, so whatever Smaug did to get your grandfather’s is entirely illegal.”

“We could never make that stick,” Thorin says, although he won’t deny that the idea of suing Smaug for everything he’s worth has a certain appeal. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course I did. If anything, this has only increased my desire to murder him,” Bilbo says. He reads another text – this one he keeps hidden from Thorin – and tucks his phone away. “Along with the rest of the band’s. I’ve never seen Gandalf that angry in all my life.”

Thorin’s never seen Gandalf get angry at all. “What about Kili and Fili? Are they still angry?”

“Less so than before,” Bilbo says. “A lot less. Dis said pretty much the same thing you said, but quieter – she said that you and she knew how much Kili and Fili loved Thror, and the two of you and Edden wanted them to remember him like he was before. Alive, and whole.”

That’s a nicer way of putting it than Thorin used, but he can imagine his sister saying it, using her psychologist’s tricks to reframe Thorin’s outburst into something semi-reasonable. He’s going to apologize for it anyway. “Oh,” Bilbo says, “and she told me to tell you that if you come back and start apologizing, she’s going to – and I’m quoting her directly here – knock the shit out of you.”

Dis and Thorin have never gotten in a fight – their age difference is too great – but Thorin doesn’t like his chances. In fact, the only way this night could get worse is if it ends with Thorin getting curb-stomped by his older sister for trying to apologize to his nephews. “I was awful.”

“Your sister doesn’t think so,” Bilbo says. “She thinks anyone who saw what you did would be upset.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “I know I would.”

Thorin wishes Bilbo would touch him. His shoulder, his arm, his hand – anywhere – so Thorin will stop feeling like he’s spinning off into nothingness. Bilbo crosses his arms over his chest against the cold. “When I was telling you about my parents, about what it was like after the accident – why didn’t you say anything?”

“It wasn’t about me,” Thorin says. “It was about you.”

“Well, now it’s about you,” Bilbo says brusquely. “Have you ever told anyone what it was like to see that?”

Thorin shakes his head. In fact, the song he was writing earlier was the first time he’d written of it or spoken of it to anyone. By the time Dis and Thrain got to the hospital, Thorin’s feet were wrapped and the glass taken out, and he was floating along in an empty fog of painkillers. Dis thought he’d heard the shot and called 911; Thrain thought he’d arrived when the EMTs were already there. Thorin paid the hospital bill himself and never spoke of it to anyone. Not until tonight.

“You could probably use a therapist,” Bilbo says. “Your sister probably knows a few.”

“It’s fine,” Thorin says. “I should have talked about it earlier, now I’ve shouted it at my nephews and the entire band – now it’s over with.”

“That’s not how it works,” Bilbo says, and his voice takes on a sharp edge of frustration. “Thorin, it looked like it was killing you. From the moment you read the tweet until the moment you left, you were just gone, and none of us could say or do anything to bring you back. Do you know why Bofur didn’t want to let you go? Do you know why Balin made you turn up your phone?”

Thorin’s brain is slow with cold, but even so, it comes together surprisingly fast. “I was just coming out here to be alone.”

“None of us knew that,” Bilbo says shortly. “We were afraid for you. You can’t do that to the people who love you.”

Thorin feels his heart lift ever so slightly, even though he’s not himself, even though he’s so cold that he’s beginning to shiver. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just come back,” Bilbo says. He nudges Thorin with his shoulder, and when Thorin looks, he sees that Bilbo’s offering his hand. Thorin tries not to grab for it like a drowning man lunging for a life preserver, but he thinks it comes off that way anyway. Bilbo flinches. “Your hands are like ice, Thorin! We need to go.”

He gets to his feet, and because he has Thorin’s hand, Thorin comes up, too. Bilbo lets go of Thorin, but only for a moment. He unwinds Ori’s scarf from around his neck and settles it snugly around Thorin’s. Thorin objects. “You’ll get cold.”

“I’ve been inside, where it’s warm, for the last hour and a half,” Bilbo says. So that’s how long it’s been. Bilbo takes Thorin’s hand again. He lifts it to his mouth and kisses it, his lips burning like a brand against Thorin’s cold skin. “Come on.”

Thorin follows him out of the rock garden, to the edge of the park. Thorin can see the bus parked across the street, all its lights on, faces in the windows. He missed load-out, for the second show in a row, and guilt for that and a hundred other things washes over Thorin. Bilbo stops at the edge of the park and pulls Thorin around to face him. His eyes are fierce in the darkness. It unsettles Thorin, but in a good way – a way that means he can still feel something, a way that means he’s alive. “What?”

Bilbo rises up on tiptoe and kisses him. Just one kiss, but it’s drawn out enough that Thorin’s face is hot by the time Bilbo steps back. Then Thorin remembers where they are, who’s probably watching them from across the street. “The band –”

“Let them see,” Bilbo says simply. He moves a strand of Thorin’s hair out of his face with his free hand, lets his fingers slip down to Thorin’s temple, his cheek, his jaw. “You scared me. Please don’t scare me again.”

“I won’t,” Thorin says. Bilbo smiles faintly; then he steps back, and he and Thorin cross the street to the bus.

Everyone is on the bus, Dis and Edden included. Edden at least has the decency to pretend he wasn’t watching, but everyone else is making no such effort. Thorin looks for his nephews. Kili’s face is still blotchy, but his eyes are clear, and when he sees Thorin, he tries to smile. Fili won’t make eye contact, and when Thorin lets go of Bilbo’s hand, he goes to Fili first. Fili still won’t look at him, even when Thorin is right in front of him. “Fili,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” Fili says. His voice is shaky. “If I’d known about – that you were – I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, you would have, and you would have been right to,” Thorin says. He puts his hand on Fili’s shoulder and takes it as a good sign when Fili doesn’t immediately shrug him off. “Maybe I was wrong. I shouldn’t have kept the truth from you and your brother – not for this long, and maybe not at all.”

“I can’t believe he did that,” Fili says quietly. “I don’t understand. Even if he didn’t want to be here – why couldn’t he stay, for us? We needed him.”

“I don’t know,” Thorin says, because in truth, he doesn’t. He can speculate as to why Thror did it – the loss of his company, the disease – but he’ll never know what was going through Thror’s head in his last moments. None of them will.

“I don’t understand why we weren’t enough,” Fili says, quieter still.

“You are,” Thorin says. He tightens his grip on Fili’s shoulder, and Fili looks up at him. There are tears in his nephew’s eyes again, but this time, at least, Thorin didn’t cause them. “We all are – more than enough, and it’s not our fault that he didn’t see it that way.”

“I’m _not_ going to cry again,” Fili says. He swallows, squares his shoulders in Thorin’s grip. “I’m going to find Smaug and murder him.”

“If we murder him, we’ll go to jail,” Kili says, more practically than usual. He punches Thorin in the shoulder, and Thorin turns to look at him. “I want a hug.”

“What?”

“I know you hate hugs,” Kili says resolutely, “but I want one.”

Thorin lets go of Fili and straightens up, only for Kili to cannonball into him with as much speed as he can muster. He nearly knocks Thorin into the row of seats on top of Fili, who is scrambling to get out of the way. Kili hugs like a boa constrictor, and in spite of the fact that he apparently lost an arm-wrestling match to Bilbo, he’s still strong enough to make Thorin’s ribs creak. When he steps back, he offers Thorin a smile. “We’ll be okay,” he says. “Smaug can go fuck himself.”

“Hear, hear,” Dwalin bellows from the back of the bus. “Let’s fuck him sideways.”

“Ew,” Ori says. “Let’s not do that. Let’s destroy him with our success!”

“That,” Fili says, “does not sound nearly as fun. Neither of those things sound fun.”

“As a matter of fact,” Gandalf says, appearing out of the row of seats across from Edden and Dis, “Ori is right. Our success is doing more to Smaug than we ever could. Listen to this.”

He pulls out his phone and reads aloud. “@DJSmaug should be ashamed of himself. Thorin + family have been through enough. Downloading @thelonelymountains LP right now. #wontbackdown.”

“What’s the hashtag?” Dis asks. Her eyes are shining again.

“Someone got the video of the encore up on YouTube,” Bilbo says. He’s already settled into he and Thorin’s usual row of seats. “I shared it on our social media, and people are using the hashtag to show their support. He’s really stepped in it this time.”

“People care about us now,” Bofur says, leaning out of the driver’s seat to look at Thorin. “They care about you, too.”

“Yeah, listen to this,” Nori chimes in. “@DJSmaug go home, you’re shitty as hell. #wontbackdown. That one’s got like five hundred retweets and it just went up five minutes ago.”

Kili sits there for a moment, lost in thought. “We need shirts,” he says. “Lots of shirts.”

“No spray paint in the house!” Edden says.

Thorin spends the ride back to Dis’s house in the front row of seats with Bilbo. Bilbo shows him the social media responses to Smaug’s tweet. They’re overwhelmingly negative, and most of them include a message of support for The Lonely Mountains and/or Thorin’s family. Some people tweet directly at the band’s official Twitter account, offering support and sharing the stories of suicide in their own families, how they got through or how they didn’t. Thorin reads through dozens of those, even though they’re sad and horrible, every last one of them. It makes him feel less alone with his own sad and horrible thing.

Early on, there were a surge of tweets directly at Rivendell Records’ official account, asking them not to drop The Lonely Mountains – or threatening about what they were going to do if the label does drop them. Bilbo, wincing, exchanged a few furious texts with the record label’s social media manager, and now there’s a pinned tweet on the label’s Twitter home page. _To Whom It May Concern: We have no intention of dropping @thelonelymountains from our label. In fact, we think @DJSmaug is pouting because we got them first_.

Bilbo cringes when he sees it. “We’re talking about suicide here. It’s a little insensitive.”

“I like it,” Thorin says. “Whoever wrote it is a genius – it’s exactly the kind of thing that will piss him off.”

“Well, in that case,” Bilbo says, navigating to the band’s Twitter page, “let’s retweet it.”

Some people are posting their own covers of the song, complete with stories about what it means to them. There aren’t many of those, but Thorin watches every one of them, until he falls asleep on Bilbo’s shoulder and wakes up only when they’re pulling into the driveway. As everyone is exiting the bus, Thorin catches Dis by the arm. “Don’t you dare apologize,” she says, “except for not telling me everything. I had no idea about your feet. How long did those take to heal?”

“Two months or so,” Thorin says. “I couldn’t not walk.”

His sister’s shoulders slump. “Thorin, you need to learn to ask for help.”

“I’m trying,” Thorin says. When he says that, Dis smiles. “I should have handled that better, back there.”

“You handled it how you had to handle it,” Dis says. “No one blames you. I definitely don’t.”

She yawns, and Thorin lets go of her. “Love you, D.”

“Love you, T.” She heads into the house, and Thorin follows her.

Bilbo is waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. Thorin offers Bilbo his hand, and Bilbo takes it. Thorin is in Bilbo’s arms the instant the door to Thorin’s room locks behind them, and he almost falls asleep standing up, almost too tired to make it to the bed. Bilbo lets go of Thorin only long enough for both of them to change out of their street clothes. Thorin winds up tucked beneath Bilbo’s arm, his head on Bilbo’s shoulder. His hand beneath Bilbo’s shirt, resting over his heart. Thorin falls asleep with Bilbo’s heartbeat in his hand and under his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to adiaphora, JuniAsat, and SunnyRose for commenting - it always makes my day to hear what you all think. Additional thanks to everyone who bookmarked or left kudos.


	20. Chapter 20

“I wish you could have seen your face after he kissed you,” Dwalin says, chuckling to himself. He’s loading the bus, as usual – he has to make sure that no one lays a finger on his bass. “You looked like you’d been hit over the head.”

“Yeah, there was definitely a concussed sort of look in your eyes,” Nori says. “He must be really good.”

Thorin resists the urge to shove one, or both of them, into the lake. As he feared, the entire band saw Bilbo kiss him – and the entire band now feels entitled to express their approval of the relationship, which Thorin is fine with, or their critique of Thorin’s kissing ability, which he’s not. This is a new avenue of criticism for them, though. Apparently Thorin’s reaction to being kissed by Bilbo in public, in front of an audience, was insufficiently suave.

“So?” Nori prompts. “Is he good?”

“I’d tell you to kiss him yourself and see,” Edden says, “but Thorin would probably kill you.”

“Not probably,” Thorin says. He picks up Nori’s duffel bag and wings it into the bus’s baggage compartment with a little more enthusiasm than necessary. “Why does this matter to you?”

“Because,” Dwalin says, “you are the lead singer of an up-and-coming band. You have to be cool, even when you’re stupidly in love.”

“Who said anything about love?” Thorin says, well aware that he’s said it to himself multiple times. One of these days it’s going to escape out of his mouth and everything will go to immediate hell. “No one said that.”

“Ah, doubling down on that strategy, I see,” Gandalf says, approaching with his own suitcase. Everyone else has duffel bags – Gandalf and Bilbo have suitcases, and Gandalf also has an inexhaustible supply of slightly ridiculous advice about relationships for Thorin. “Best not do it where Bilbo can hear.”

“I’m not doing it,” Thorin says. “They’re doing it.”

“We,” Nori says, offended, “are providing advice to our dear friend and illustrious leader Thorin Oakenshield, lest he fuck this up.”

“I’m not in high school,” Thorin says. “I’ve been in relationships before.”

“We know,” all four of them say at once. Dwalin picks up the thread. “But you’ve never acted this weird before, so we know it’s a big deal. And you need extra help so you don’t fuck it up with your boyfriend and our agent.”

“Yes, good point,” Edden says. “Shall we call Kili over? He’s grown into quite the romantic.”

“Don’t you dare,” Thorin says. “He’s already been following me around.”

Other than Thorin himself, no one is more excited about Thorin’s relationship with Bilbo than Kili is. He’s made it his mission to turn Thorin into the perfect boyfriend, and he seems to think the way to do this is to compile an exhaustive list of things Bilbo likes or doesn’t like and force Thorin to memorize them. Bilbo finds this entertaining, and most of his list items are preposterous – Thorin didn’t believe for a second that Bilbo’s third most-favorite food was fish-head soup, or that his fifth most-favorite flower was the skunk cabbage. Thorin can’t decide if Kili knows that Bilbo is feeding him false information or not. It’s entirely possible that he knows, doesn’t care, and is just in it for the joy of irritating Thorin.

Even when they’re being enormously irritating, Thorin is finding it hard to be irritated with his nephews. The fact that they’re still talking to him, and that things seem to be headed back to normal, is something he’s both bewildered by and grateful for.

Right now, Bilbo is going over the particulars of cactus care with Dis by the front steps. Thorin was standing with them until Nori and Dwalin grabbed him and towed him off to the bus for an impromptu relationship coaching session. Edden slaps Thorin on the shoulder. “Oh, cheer up, Thorin. You made it this far on your own. You’re going to be fine.”

“I don’t know,” Nori says, “we are talking about the man who asked his junior prom date to the dance five different times because he kept ‘not doing it right’.”

“What part of ‘I was sixteen’ are you failing to understand?” Thorin asks. “At least I didn’t have your haircut.”

Nori looks affronted. “Low blow.”

“Not exactly,” Thorin says, “given the height of that mohawk.”

“I was sixteen!”

“Then you should see my point,” Thorin says. He glances over his shoulder at Bilbo, wishes he were standing with Bilbo and his sister still, and thinks again about pushing Nori into the lake. “Besides, you have your own problems. How many phone numbers did you get after the L.A. show?”

“Eleven,” Nori says, looking pleased with himself. “That’s the opposite of a problem.”

“Thorin!” Dis calls from behind him. Thank Durin for Dis, because the rabbit hole that is Nori’s romantic life is not something Thorin wants to go down, now or ever. “Come here, I need to talk to you.”

Thorin tosses two more bags into the baggage compartment and turns around, heading back up the front path to his sister. Behind him, he hears Dwalin say, “Oh, fucking hell. His walk.”

“He needs a better walk,” Nori agrees.

“It’s not so bad,” Gandalf says.

Thorin can practically hear the eye-roll in Edden’s voice. “Give it up. He’s a musician, not a male model.”

Thorin cannot think of a less helpful thing for Edden to say. Dwalin bursts out laughing, and Nori is cackling, too. “Thorin, can you show us Blue Steel?”

“Burn in hell,” Thorin says without turning around. He meets up with Dis and Bilbo as they start down the path towards the bus. Dis stops. Bilbo nods at Thorin, looking up at him from under his eyelashes, and then hurries off down the path with a little smirk on his face. Thorin turns to Dis with an effort. “What is it?”

“You looked like you needed rescuing,” Dis says. She’s snickering. “Blue Steel?”

“I don’t know,” Thorin says. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I should have known they’d overreact.”

“They’re happy for you,” Dis says, “but they’re emotionally inhibited manly men and they can’t just _say_ that. It’s cute, in a weird way.”

“Cute is not the word I’d use.” Thorin folds his arms. “Are things okay? Really?”

Dis smiles at him. She puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Thorin. I am and you are and so are Kili and Fili. In fact, the only person who isn’t is whoever gave Smaug Grandpa’s death certificate. I’m going to chop them up into little pieces.”

Thorin hopes she means that figuratively. He thinks she probably does, but he can’t be sure. “Don’t get caught.”

“I never do,” Dis says. “Anyway, I didn’t just call you over to rescue you from your new matchmakers. I found something of Mom’s when I was cleaning out the attic. I don’t know if you’ll remember it, but –”

She pulls out a blue velvet box. Thorin’s never seen the box before, but when his sister opens it, he recognizes what’s inside. “Mom’s ring?”

Dis nods. “You remember the story, right?”

Thrain didn’t have enough money to give their mother the kind of ring he wanted to, so he gave her a placeholder ring and a sketch of the one he’d give her when he could afford it. Five years later, he had it specially made and proposed to her again. Thorin nods. “She wore it on her middle finger, not her ring finger, didn’t she?”

“That’s the one,” Dis says. She smiles again, softer. “You loved to play with it when you were a baby. It’s the only thing in the world you never tried to put in your mouth.”

Sometimes it’s unfortunate that Thorin’s older sister is old enough to remember every embarrassing instance about his childhood. “I thought she was buried with it.”

“She was buried wearing the original ring,” Dis says. “I remember her saying that the first one was her wedding ring – the second one was just a bonus. Anyway, I found it again a few days ago. And I thought you should have it.”

“You thought – me?” Thorin stares at her. “Why? It’s her ring. It should go to you.”

“Why, because I’m her daughter?” Dis rolls her eyes. “Don’t be dense, Thorin.”

“I’m not being dense,” Thorin says. “Dis, you remember Mom. Better than I do. Her things, the ones that mattered, those should be yours.”

Dis sighs. “It’s because I remember that I’m giving it to you. I have seventeen years’ worth of memories of Mom. You’ve probably only got two. I want you to have something of hers that you loved.”

Thorin hesitates, looking at the ring. He has faint, pleasant memories of grabbing for it, of trying to see how many fingers he could fit through it, or just petting its surface – the inlay work made it feel funny. “It wouldn’t fit on my hand.”

“I’ve got a chain,” Dis says offhandedly. She pulls a thin but strong-looking silver chain out of her pocket and untangles it. “Take it, Thorin. Mom would want you to have it.”

Thorin looks at it – how sad is it that he remembers this ring better than he remembers his mother’s face? But his mother loved him, enough that she let him play with this thing, which is definitely worth more than most of the things Thorin owns. Bilbo’s words about his tattoo spring to Thorin’s mind – _something I can take with me, everywhere_. Maybe Thorin needs that for one of his parents, the one who didn’t leave by choice. He relents. “Okay.”

“Finally,” Dis says. She picks up the ring out of the box and threads it on the chain before handing it to Thorin to fasten himself. It’s a longer chain, long enough to duck beneath the neckline of his shirt, so he can hide it if he wants to. “I can find a different chain if you don’t like this one.”

“No, it works,” Thorin says. Both the chain and the ring are cool against his skin; they’ll pick up his body heat soon enough. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” Dis says. She hugs Thorin, harder than usual.

Thorin taps out on her shoulder. Bilbo was right; Dis is much stronger than Kili. “Loosen up, D.”

“The test,” Dis says quietly. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No,” Thorin says, even as he feels the ground drop out from beneath his feet. “We’ve got tour dates in Denver coming up. I’ll get it done there. Can I still use your mailing address?”

“Yes,” Dis says, “but Thorin, you really should talk to a genetic counselor.”

That sounds like it should be at the bottom of Thorin’s list of things to do. He shrugs. “What’s the point? I already know everything I need to know about the situation. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.” He sees Dis open her mouth to respond and keeps going. “Besides nobody’s going to be able to change how I’ll react to the answer.”

Dis sighs. “Thorin, you were there when I got mine. I was a mess, and my result was the one we were hoping for. Fifty-fifty yours will be, too, but if it’s not –”

“If it’s not, I’ll deal with it,” Thorin says. It immediately occurs to him that this could be taken the wrong way, and based on the way Dis is glaring at him, she’s doing exactly that. “By deal with it, I mean make my peace with it. That’s the only thing I can do. So – mailing address?”

“Yes, you can use my mailing address,” Dis says. She shoves him lightly. “I’m going to miss you, T.”

“You only say that because I’m never here long enough for you to get tired of me,” Thorin says, and Dis laughs. Thorin glances at the bus. It’s almost all packed – only Fili and Kili are still waiting on the steps to say goodbye to their mother. “If you ever want to see another one of our shows – preferably one where we’re not going crazy over something Smaug did – I’ll fly you and Edden out to see it.”

“We can fly ourselves out,” Dis says. “I’ll check my schedule and let you know.”

Thorin nods. He hugs Dis goodbye. “Love you, D.”

“Love you too, T.”

Thorin starts down the path, says goodbye to Edden, and passes Kili and Fili on his way up the steps into the bus. A few minutes later, Kili and Fili board, and Bofur starts the bus up Dis’s driveway and back to the road. Bilbo’s on the other side of the aisle from Thorin – he always stays that way until Thorin’s sitting down, because Thorin likes the window seat. He never told Bilbo that, but as soon as Thorin’s settled, Bilbo is in the seat next to him. Thorin turns to him. “How’s Myrtle?”

“Good,” Bilbo says. “Your sister really knows her plants.”

“Our mother liked them,” Thorin says. That’s another thing he remembers – weeding the garden with his mother and Dis, and pulling up baby carrots as often as weeds. “It was something she and Dis did together.”

Bilbo nods at this. “That sounds right,” he says. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but meeting your sister explains a lot about you.”

“What do you mean?” Thorin asks, wondering what the wrong way is.

“I can see some of the ways you’re alike,” Bilbo says, “and it makes the things that are just you stand out more. I’m not a lyricist like you. Sometimes I have a hard time describing things, even to myself. I know what’s unique to you, but it’s easier to name it. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Thorin says, but his mind is drawn back to something he saw two months ago. “I thought you wrote songs.”

Bilbo makes a scathing noise. “There’s a difference between writing songs and being a lyricist, Thorin. In any case – wait.” He stares at Thorin. “How did you know I was writing songs?”

A moment later he claps his hand to his forehead and remembers aloud. “The North Dakota show. You watched my things. What did you read?”

“Nothing,” Thorin admits. “Your handwriting was too small.”

Bilbo smirks a little bit. “I do that on purpose.”

“I thought so.” Thorin studies him. “What were you writing about?”

“Nothing,” Bilbo says. He shifts in his seat. He looks embarrassed, like he’s been caught doing something bad. “I don’t do anything with them. I write them mostly to process things. They aren’t very good, and I certainly can’t compose for them. It’s what I do instead of going to therapy.”

He pauses for a moment. “That sounds healthy of me. Avoiding therapy. In any case, they’re not really worth mentioning.”

When Bilbo gets embarrassed, he rambles – and he talks much faster than usual while he’s doing it. Thorin finds it adorable, but in an attractive way. That barely makes sense even to him, and yet he can’t think of a better way to describe it. “Could I read them?”

Bilbo looks startled. “Why would you want to read them? They’re bad.”

“I don’t know,” Thorin says. “I want to see how you write. I find songwriting style says a lot about a person.”

“Explain, please,” Bilbo says, raising his eyebrows.

Thorin comes up with an example on the fly. “Thranduil writes most of Lasgalen’s music – his style is very abstract. It relies a lot on weird, specific imagery that evokes a specific feeling, but the feeling doesn’t always match the tune. Thranduil in person is beyond aloof – it’s like he’s on a different planet than everyone else. His lyrics sound like cultural references from another world.”

“Unbelievable,” Bilbo says. “You’re a poet even when you’re talking about someone you hate.”

Thorin doesn’t know how to respond to that. “The Defilers, on the other hand – Smaug’s pet artists – their style is incredibly blunt. It’s not subtle in the slightest, and it’s rough bordering on crude bordering on harsh. Based on what I’ve heard, they’re like that in person, too.”

“They are,” Bilbo says. “I’ve heard rumors about them – apparently their lead singer has clocked more booking agents than you have, and for worse reasons. Police departments have brought them up on charges before, but they never seem to stick.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Smaug doesn’t play by the rules of us mere mortals.” Thorin’s still at the point where he can barely say Smaug’s name without getting angry. “So. Songwriting style as a metaphor for personality. I want to see if yours matches.”

Bilbo considers him for a minute. “Maybe. I might have to get a little drunk first.”

“You don’t have to show me if you’re going to have to anesthetize yourself to get through it,” Thorin says, alarmed. “Forget I said anything.”

Bilbo doesn’t answer this. He keeps studying Thorin, until Thorin starts to shift uncomfortably beneath his gaze. “I’m trying to figure out what yours says about you,” he says after a while. “Yours is – restrained. The hard-hitting lines aren’t thrown in here or there – you move them further down in line placement with every verse. But there’s feeling in it. The listener gets the sense that there’s a lot more going on beneath the lyrics, but the lyrics only ever hint at it.”

He sighs, and Thorin can’t tell if it’s exasperated or admiring. “It’s intriguing. Almost mysterious.” Bilbo looks up at Thorin from under his eyelashes. Thorin wants to tell Bilbo how that makes him feel, but he doesn’t want Bilbo to stop doing it, either. He restrains himself. “It sounds a lot like Thorin Oakenshield to me.”

Restrained. Intriguing. Mysterious. Thorin can’t tell if those are good things or not. Then Bilbo says, “Of course, that’s in songwriting. You’re different in person.”

“Really?” Thorin twists in his seat to look at Bilbo straight on. “How so?”

Before Bilbo can answer – and based on the look on his face, he’s going to have a hard time doing so – Fili shouts at him from the back of the bus. “Bilbo! Check your Twitter. Like, now!”

Bilbo whips out his phone, doing a poor job of pretending not to be relieved in the process. Thorin lets a smile tug one corner of his mouth. It’s not often he gets to catch Bilbo unawares. Bilbo pokes around on his phone for a minute – then he sits upright, as though he’s been hit with an electric shock. “No,” he says. “This has to be a joke. This cannot be real.”

“What?” Thorin asks.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Gloin yells from the back of the bus. “Smaug apologized!”

That sounds off to Thorin. All kinds of off. Smaug doesn’t apologize for anything. In fact, he almost seems to revel in hideousness, like he can’t imagine anything better than whatever awful thing he’s doing at a given moment. “What did he say?”

Dori reads it aloud. “@thelonelymountains, my behavior was nothing short of boorish. Please accept an apology, and an invitation to perform in my upcoming #NorthernLights music festival.”

“Holy shit,” Kili says. “He just posted another one. @thelonelymountains: Tell your agent to check his email.”

“Don’t do it,” Gandalf says. Everyone on the bus – at least, Thorin hopes, everyone except Bofur – turns to look at him. “What? It could be a virus.”

“If he was sending us a virus, I doubt he’d announce it ahead of time on Twitter,” Balin says. Thorin has to admit he’s right. Smaug never telegraphs what he’s doing that clearly. His attacks are all the more dangerous because they come completely out of left field. “Go ahead, Bilbo. Open it.”

Bilbo does. He scans the text, then pokes at the PDF attachment. When he looks up, he looks more than a little dazed. “Oh, no, he wasn’t joking. It’s a contract. A contract signing you on as one of the second-stage acts in the festival.”

Everyone on the bus falls silent. Thorin finds his voice first. “That sounds like a trap.”

“It is undoubtedly a trap,” Gandalf agrees. Thorin glances at him, surprised. Gandalf is usually up for a few bad ideas. His next words are much more in character. “That does not mean we shouldn’t do it.”

“Oh, say what you mean,” Dwalin growls, losing patience.

“Smaug has extended this invitation because of the backlash he received for posting the death certificate,” Gandalf says. Thorin thinks it was less the death certificate and more the commentary that brought the hammer of public opinion down on Smaug. “You are popular, and not-insignificant portions of the internet are on your side. That should provide some protection against Smaug’s bad behavior.”

He stares off into space for a moment, then seems to snap back to himself. “In addition, the Northern Lights festival is already being hailed as the musical event of the decade. It would be a wise move for the band to perform on such a stage. Even the second stage.”

Gandalf’s right about that. Thorin knows it, and so does Bilbo. Bilbo says so, to immediate protests from Oin, Kili, and Nori. “It’s a trap,” Kili says. “Thorin, you just said it was a trap, and Gandalf agreed with you. Why are we still thinking about doing it?”

“As much as it concerns me to say this, Kili has a point,” Balin says, and Kili aims a glare at him. “We’re putting ourselves at risk. It’s a pity offer, and Smaug has already shown that he’ll take every opportunity to force us out.”

Ori pops up over his seat. “I’m not afraid,” he says, “I’m up for it. Let’s go there and knock him flat on his ass.”

“Hear, hear!” This comes from Bombur of all people. “Is it still a trap if you know it’s a trap going in?”

“Yes!” Kili explodes. “A trap is a trap is a trap – why is this so hard for all of you to get?”

“Bombur has a point,” Bilbo says after a moment. “Forewarned is generally said to be forearmed. If we go in there expecting him to try something, we won’t be surprised when he does, and we’ll be better equipped to handle it. Besides, after the backlash this time around, I doubt he’ll go for it again in the same way.”

“Thorin,” Dwalin calls. “What do you think?”

When it comes to Smaug, Thorin typically avoids confrontation. It’s why he never protested when venues dropped them last minute, why he changed the band’s name so many times rather than go to war over it with Smaug. Thorin didn’t have the resources or the ability to fight Smaug then. But now he does, and now he’s angry again – angrier than he’s been at Smaug in months, maybe even years. And Thorin’s always been better at close combat than anything else.

“I say we do it,” Thorin says. “It’s time to take the fight to him.”

“I’ll read over the contract,” Bilbo says. He discards his phone for the moment and reaches for his laptop. “Make sure we know exactly what we’re agreeing to. Balin, if I forward it to you, can you do the same?”

“Right away,” Balin says. “So – barring any concerning elements in the contract, we’re doing this.”

“We’re doing this,” Thorin says. “Unless anyone has objections?”

There’s silence on the bus. Thorin looks into their faces and sees trepidation, anticipation, excitement. They’re wary, just like Thorin is. But after the events of the last few days, Thorin doesn’t think there’s anyone on the bus who isn’t ready to go to war. Thorin makes eye contact with each of them in turn, and when no objections are forthcoming, he restates it. “We’re doing this.”

* * *

The contract doesn’t have any glaring inconsistencies. It doesn’t sell their music, their trademark, and their souls to Smaug. Bilbo and Balin both check it over and declare it to be aboveboard, save for one unusual clause; a provision specifying heavy fines for whichever party, Smaug or The Lonely Mountains, breaks contract. Bilbo theorizes that it’s to reassure The Lonely Mountains that they aren’t being set up. The fine for Smaug is enormous, and Thorin knows he’ll do anything to avoid paying it, but the fine on Thorin’s end is, too, and Thorin doesn’t like the idea of not being able to escape. Still, he’s made his choice, and he stays the course. If Smaug wants to get rid of Thorin and the band, he’s going to have to pay for the privilege.

It’s not even fifteen minutes after the contract’s been PDF signed and sent back to Smaug’s company – Arkenstone Recording Studios, a name he stole from Thorin’s band – that the promotional poster for the Northern Lights festival is released on Twitter. Thorin gets his second nasty shock of the day the first time he looks at it and spots two of the other five second-stage bands: The Barrel-Riders, and Lasgalen.

“Is he just inviting everybody he fucked over?” Kili asks when he hears Bilbo mention The Barrel-Riders. Kili has resolutely maintained that the entire situation is a trap, and there’s an uncharacteristic scowl on his face.

“No, they’ve been on the roster since before Esgaroth Recording Studios went down,” Bilbo says absently. “That’s why Smaug’s buyout was such a shock. If he’s trying to screw us –”

“Which he probably is,” Kili puts in.

“– he’s not going to use them to do it,” Bilbo finishes. “None of you have the power to do anything to each other except steal each other’s audience shares, and you’re after different audience shares to begin with. At least, The Barrel-Riders are. You and Lasgalen are a different story, but I don’t think they’ll be impossible to handle.”

Kili’s scowl shrinks. “Lasgalen’s going to be there?”

“Yes, Lasgalen is going to be there, and you are going to compose yourself around Thranduil’s backup singer or I’m going to handcuff you to your brother,” Bilbo says. Thorin smirks at the image.

“Her name’s Tauriel,” Kili says. The scowl is almost gone, and it’s quickly being replaced by an extremely dopey smile. “When’s the festival again?”

“Unbelievable. Three seconds ago you were talking about how this is definitely a trap, and now you’re counting down the days,” Thorin says. He can’t decide whether he’s amused or disgusted by the effects of infatuation on his younger nephew. “This is not an opportunity for you to hook up.”

Kili looks offended. “Don’t mix me up with Fili. I’m not trying to hook up. I’m trying to impress the most beautiful and talented woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Except you’ve never seen her in person,” Bilbo points out. “Just watched videos of her performing.”

“Okay, so I’ll see her in person, and then I’ll be trying to impress the most beautiful and talented woman I’ve ever seen,” Kili says, undeterred. “Uncle Thorin, you and Bilbo will be my wingmen, right?”

“I don’t think you want me as a wingman if we’re going anywhere near Thranduil,” Thorin says. “His family and ours don’t get along.”

This warning doesn’t deter Kili either. He wanders back to his seat, much happier with their situation than he was five minutes ago. Thorin is almost impressed by Kili’s utter cluelessness. It doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind that falling in dopey, post-teenage love with a member of a rival band might be a problem. Then again, falling in love with your agent is usually considered a problem, and Thorin’s gone and done it anyway. He’s not in the best position to criticize Kili.

Bilbo closes his laptop and stands up in his seat. “Bofur, how far are we from Park City?”

“Another two hours or so,” Bofur says. “Maybe more, if the snow picks up.”

Bilbo blinks. “Snow?”

“Look outside,” Ori calls from the back of the bus. He’s started work on another scarf, this one blue and silver instead of blue and green. “It’s been going for half an hour.”

Bilbo crawls across Thorin to look out the window, something that probably isn’t necessary but something Thorin’s not going to complain about. The snow is sticking to everything that’s not the road or the cars on it, and Bilbo looks – well, enchanted by it. Thorin can’t help but smile. “Does it not snow where you grew up?”

“It snows sometimes,” Bilbo says without taking his eyes off the scene outside, “but never a lot, and it never stays around for long. Seattle gets mostly rain – any time it snows, the whole city goes insane. When I was in college, they canceled classes for two days over three inches of snow.”

Thorin snorts at this. “I don’t think they ever cancel school in Vail.”

“They did that one time, with the bear,” Nori says. He and Thorin’s high school careers overlapped by two years, although they ran with vastly different crowds. “Of course, we couldn’t go home, because the bear was outside, but it was nice not to have to do anything for a day.”

This, of all things, breaks Bilbo away from the snow. “You had bears outside your school?”

“Well, Vail is up in the mountains,” Balin says. “The mountains are where the bears are, and if they get too habituated to humans, they start coming down from the mountains to eat garbage. That particular bear had a fondness for school lunch leftovers.”

“I have no idea why,” Nori says. “That shit was toxic.”

Bilbo is shaking his head. “I thought you all had an unhealthy obsession with bears, but I’m starting to see where it comes from.”

“Maybe Kili should make a band shirt,” Bofur muses from the front seat. “An unhealthy obsession with bears. It might sell.”

“Or we could call our first album that,” Ori puts in.

“We are not calling our first album ‘An Unhealthy Obsession With Bears’,” Thorin says. He and the band make nearly all band-related decisions together, but Thorin is going to reserve the right to veto suggestions for an album title. “Run the shirt idea by Kili, though. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few funny ones.”

The conversation devolves into a debate about what constitutes a funny band shirt, and Bilbo goes back to looking out the window. One of Thorin’s legs is starting to go to sleep. “Do you want to switch seats or something?”

“I,” Bilbo says, “am perfectly happy with where I am.”

In spite of this statement, he shifts position so he’s no longer driving his knee into Thorin’s thigh. “I imagine you’re used to the snow,” he says after a moment. “Do you like it? Sometimes people who come from places where it snows a lot don’t.”

“I like it,” Thorin says after a moment. He’s never asked himself a question like that before. Snow is a fact of life, not something to approve or disapprove of. “It reminds me of home.”

“Me, too,” Bilbo says. A wistful smile comes to his face. “My parents always took off work on snow days. I used to go sledding down the street outside my house, and when it got too cold to be outside, we’d come in and watch movies. I never got much homework done on days like that.”

He considers the snow again, and although his next words are more businesslike, the wistful look hasn’t quite left his face. It almost breaks Thorin’s heart. He can’t tell if Bilbo’s missing home or his parents or just the past, when both of those things were still together. “I wonder if I could get some photos of the band out in the snow. People tend to find well-staged snow photos cute.”

“Are we supposed to be cute?” Thorin asks.

“Well, I imagine I’ll leave the cute shots to Fili, Kili, and Ori,” Bilbo says speculatively, “but the rest of you still know how to take a good picture. I’ll see if I can find somewhere appropriate to stage it when we get there. If Bofur’s right, we’ll be there two hours before we’re supposed to load in.”

Bilbo raises his voice, and it’s a mark of how much the band respects him that they instantly stop what they’re doing and snap to attention. “When we get there, I’m taking photos of all of you out in the snow. Come up with something to do in your shot.”

“I’m taking off my shirt,” Kili says immediately.

“Go for it,” Bilbo says. A mischievous look comes to his face. “Unless your ideas are offensive or borderline pornographic, nothing’s off-limits. Go wild.”

“Yes! Finally!” Kili is practically bouncing up and down in his seat. “Bilbo, I have been waiting my entire life for this moment.”

“So you can post shirtless photos on our official Instagram? You need better dreams,” Fili says, elbowing his younger brother. “I’m going for a little more dignified.”

“Dignity is boring,” Kili says. “Besides, Thorin does dignity way better than you do.”

Thorin doesn’t know if he likes those two sentences paired together. Bilbo is smirking at him. The rest of the band begins to discuss the sort of photos they want Bilbo to take, and Thorin watches Bilbo, who can’t seem to take his eyes off the snow for more than a few minutes at a time. Enchanted was the right word, both for how Bilbo feels about the snow and how Thorin feels about Bilbo. And yet, something about it makes Thorin inexpressibly sad. He turns the thought over in his head, looking for weak points, places where he can pull apart the sadness and make himself happy again.

It’s Vail, Thorin realizes, and Bilbo talking about home. Thorin’s been to the place where Bilbo grew up. When Bilbo talks about his childhood, Thorin can see it in his mind’s eye – where Bilbo was, what it was like. He can picture Bilbo in his house, back when his house was full of laughter instead of haunting quiet. But Bilbo can’t do the same with Thorin. Thorin doesn’t have a family home to bring Bilbo back to. Thorin’s been uprooted from his home so thoroughly that there’s not even a house. Whoever bought the house Thorin grew up in – it was an anonymous buyer, but Thorin always assumed it was Smaug – had it torn down and rebuilt into a larger, uglier house. It wasn’t the tearing down that bothered Thorin. It was the rebuilding. No one who looks at that house now will have any idea that someone grew up there, that someone loved it there, that all of someone’s memories, good and bad, were bound up in that roof and those walls.

Dis subscribes to a home-is-where-the-heart is school of thought. In practice, it means that home to her is wherever Edden and Fili and Kili and sometimes Thorin are. Thorin understands it, to an extent – the band has been his home for three years now, and the bus for the last six months. Some small, sentimental part of Thorin can’t shake the wish that the Vail house was still standing. Home is wherever he is with the others, but sometimes Thorin wishes he had a place to return to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read, bookmarked, and left kudos, and a special thanks to Gerec, adiaphora, IloMarian32, and zephyr2113 for commenting. I always appreciate your thoughts.
> 
> ***  
My deepest apologies to JuniAsat, chipsandguac, and Yoanna! You all commented as well, and I'm eternally grateful.


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